Spaceship Vostok. The first flight of Soyuz MS: half a century of evolution Who created 1 spacecraft

As a result, Sergei Korolev abandoned the winged return vehicle in favor of a ballistic capsule. Its development was taken up by the talented designer Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov, who came from NII-4 at the end of 1957, who today is rightfully called the "father" of the Vostok spacecraft.

Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov (© RSC Energia)

No one in the late 1950s knew what a manned spacecraft should look like. It was only known that the greatest threat to the pilot's life would be the return to Earth. Rapid deceleration in dense layers of the atmosphere could cause an overload of up to 10 g, so at the first stage, Feoktistov's group designed the apparatus in the form of a cone - it could glide, reducing the overload by half. However, tests on volunteers showed that a trained person is quite capable of withstanding a tenfold overload, so Feoktistov proposed an unusual solution - to make the ship spherical like the first satellite. This form was well known to aerodynamicists, and therefore did not require additional research.

At first, the developers thought that when falling in the atmosphere, the ball would spin randomly, which could lead to unpredictable consequences at the time of landing. But these doubts were immediately resolved by carrying out the simplest experiment. At that time, the employees of Department No. 9 were fond of playing ping-pong. One of the members of Feoktistov's group came up with the idea of ​​using a ping-pong ball as a model with a small plasticine patch at the bottom to create eccentricity. The ball was thrown from the second floor into the flight of stairs, and it always fell exactly on the blotch - the stability of the shape was demonstrated experimentally.

One of the most serious problems was protecting the ship from overheating when entering the dense layers of the atmosphere. The existing structural materials could not withstand such temperatures. Therefore, the designers decided to use the same principle as for the R-5 and R-7 warheads - asbestos-textolite was applied to the descent vehicle, which evaporated in the incoming air flow, absorbing excess heat.

When choosing a way to return the ship, several options were also considered, in addition to the already mentioned gliding descent. For example, Sergei Korolev really liked the option of braking and landing with the help of autorotating propellers, similar to helicopter ones. However, the chief designer of helicopters, Mikhail Leontievich Mil, to whom Korolev turned with a proposal for cooperation, categorically refused: the responsibility was too great, it would take too much time for a new topic. As a result, they chose the classic parachute descent, although Korolev did not like the "rags", considering them to be yesterday's technology.

At first, the designers did not even think about a divided ship, intending to return it to Earth in its entirety. Only now, the dimensions of the rocket did not allow to make the entire ship in the form of a ball, so it was divided into two parts: a spherical descent vehicle in which the pilot was located, and an instrument compartment that burned after separation in the atmosphere.

In order not to complicate the design of the ship with a soft landing system, it was decided to eject the pilot from the descent vehicle at an altitude of several kilometers, as Vladimir Yazdovsky proposed to do back in 1956. Such a scheme gave an additional plus - ejection could be used in the event of a rocket accident in the initial launch phase.

The initial appearance of the future spacecraft was determined. Konstantin Feoktistov prepared a report for the chief designer and presented it in June 1958. Korolev supported the new layout and instructed to write an official report on the D-2 Object project (as the spacecraft for orbital flight was called in his bureau) within two months.

In mid-August, a report entitled "Materials of the preliminary study of the issue of creating an Earth satellite with a person on board" was released. It pointed out that with the help of a three-stage launch vehicle, a ship weighing 4.55.5 tons could be launched into orbit of an artificial Earth satellite. Calculations were also given in justifying the choice of the shape of the descent vehicle. In particular, the cone was rejected due to the small internal volume (1.5 m 3 versus 5 m 3 for the ball) with a given base diameter of 2.3 m, which was determined by the size of the third stage. Here, six layout options were considered.

On September 15, 1958, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev signed the final report on the satellite ship, and the next day sent letters to the USSR Academy of Sciences, the heads of the rocket industry and the Council of Chief Designers with a notification of the completion of research, allowing to start developing a "manned Earth satellite".

At the Council of Chief Designers, held in November 1958, three reports were heard: on the project of an automatic photographic reconnaissance satellite, on the project of an apparatus for manned flight along a ballistic trajectory, and on the project of a manned orbital vehicle. After discussion, the manned orbital was chosen from the last two projects. The designers gave him the highest priority over the photo reconnaissance, although the Ministry of Defense insisted on the opposite.

In order to speed up the process of preparing the drawings, Sergei Pavlovich ordered the disbandment of the groups that worked in OKB-1 on various ship systems and the unification of specialists in the newly formed sector, which was headed by Konstantin Feoktistov. The lead designer of the ship, which received the beautiful and meaningful name "Vostok", was Oleg Genrikhovich Ivanovsky, who had previously participated in the creation of satellites and "lunar ships".

Work on the ship required extensive cooperation with the involvement of subcontractors, because for a manned space flight it was necessary to design a life support system, a voice communication system, a television complex, a manual control panel, parachutes, and much more. The initiative of one bureau was clearly lacking here - it was necessary to obtain a government decree. Therefore, for Korolev at a new stage, it was important that he be supported not only by his colleagues on the Council and members of the Academy, but also by senior military officers, on whom the financing of promising projects directly depended. Sergei Pavlovich showed political flexibility - at the beginning of 1959, he proposed to unify the systems of a manned spacecraft and a photographic reconnaissance satellite. It was proposed to install complex and expensive photographic equipment on such a satellite, which was to be used repeatedly. The option suggested itself - to place such photographic equipment in the descent vehicle instead of the pilot and return it to Earth along with the captured films. Of course, this required the complete automation of the ship, which suited the Queen quite well - in manned flights, he wanted to reduce the influence of the human factor to a minimum. The photo reconnaissance aircraft was taken into development under the name Vostok-2. To avoid confusion, it was later renamed "Zenith".

Nevertheless, the military demanded that work on the photo reconnaissance was a priority. In the draft government decree, which was discussed in February 1959, only this spacecraft appeared. Korolev, through Mstislav Keldysh, achieved the inclusion of the phrase about a manned satellite ship in the text of the decree.

It turns out that the ship appeared earlier than the decision of the government on it. The first sets of drawings were transferred to the workshops of the Experimental Plant in Podlipki in early spring, at the same time the production of cases began, and the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers No. 569-2640; “On the Creation of Vostok Objects for Manned Space Flight and Other Purposes” was published only on May 22, 1959.

The Vostok spacecraft was precisely a satellite, that is, in principle, it could not change the altitude and inclination of the orbit. Its parameters were set by launch and radio control at the launch stage (as with the Lunars). Therefore, all evolutions were reduced to one, but very important maneuver - braking in space and descending in the atmosphere. To carry out this maneuver, a braking propulsion system was located in the instrument compartment, which was supposed to work flawlessly.

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev did not want to turn to the chief engine engineer Valentin Petrovich Glushko, given his high employment in creating engines for combat missiles, and therefore he invited Alexei Mikhailovich Isaev, chief designer of the nearby OKB-2, to work on the TDU-1 brake installation project. The old rocket man was not very eager to take on another job, but eventually agreed. And just seven months after the issuance of the terms of reference, on September 27, 1959, the first “burning” of the TDU-1 was carried out at the stand. The single-chamber plant operated on a self-igniting fuel (amine-based fuel and nitric acid as an oxidizer) and was based on simple physical principles. Due to this, she never failed.

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev demanded that all Vostok systems be duplicated many times, but the second TDU-1 did not fit into the layout. Therefore, the chief designer ordered that the ballistics specialists from the design office select an orbit that, in the event of a failure of the braking system, would ensure the ship's descent due to natural braking in the upper layers of the atmosphere within five to seven days after launch.

The control system of the ship, which received the unofficial name "Seagull", was to be handled by the chief designer Nikolai Alekseevich Pilyugin, but he was also extremely busy with work in the main missile direction. As a result, Korolev decided to create the complex with the help of OKB-1, placing responsibility for this on his deputy Boris Evseevich Chertok. The design of the orientation system, which was part of the control complex, was headed by Boris Viktorovich Raushenbakh, whom Korolev lured from NII-1 along with the team.

So that the deceleration of the ship in orbit does not turn into acceleration, it must be correctly oriented in space. To do this, the "East" implemented two orientation schemes.

Automatic orientation was launched either by a command from the Earth, or by the Granit on-board time-program device (in the event of a device failure, by the pilot). For reliability, it contained two independent control loops: main and backup. The main contour was supposed to provide triaxial orientation using infrared vertical (IRV). It was invented and created at the Central Design Bureau "Geophysics" for the orientation of scientific satellites. The device distinguished the boundary between the "warm" Earth along its entire circumference and the "cold" space. The infrared vertical was considered reliable, since it successfully passed full-scale tests on the R-5A geophysical rockets in August-September 1958.

The backup orientation system proposed by Boris Raushenbakh was much simpler. It is known that the ship flies in the direction of rotation of the Earth - from west to east. Accordingly, for braking, he needs to turn the engine towards the Sun, which is an excellent reference point. Therefore, the idea arose to place a solar sensor of three photocells on the ship (the Vulture device). The main drawback of such a system (compared to the main one) was only that it could not orient the ship without the Sun, that is, in the "shadow" of the Earth.

Both systems had relay control units that issued commands to the pneumatic valves of the orientation micromotors operating on compressed nitrogen. Three gyroscopic angular velocity sensors (ARS) supported the chosen direction, so the ship's orbit was called "gyroscopic" in professional jargon. Before issuing a braking impulse, the entire system passed a test - if the specified orientation was strictly maintained for a minute, TDU-1 began to work. The orientation process itself took several minutes.

In the event of a failure of automation, the pilot could switch to manual control. An unusual optical system was developed for him: an orientator "Vzor" was built into the window located under his feet, which included two annular reflecting mirrors, a light filter and glass with a grid. The sun's rays propagating from the horizon hit the first reflector and passed through the porthole glass to the second reflector, which directed them to the cosmonaut's eye. With the correct orientation of the ship, the cosmonaut with peripheral vision saw in the Vzor an image of the horizon line in the form of a concentric ring. The direction of the ship's flight was determined by the "run" of the earth's surface - under the right conditions, it coincided with the course arrows, also applied to the window glass.

The division of the ship's compartments was also duplicated. In orbit, they were tied together with metal bands. In addition, through the cable mast, communication was carried out between the equipment of the cabin and the instrument compartment. These connections had to be cut off, for which numerous and duplicated pyrotechnic devices were used: external cables were cut with pyro-knives, tie-down tapes and the cable mast pressure connector were fired with squibs. The control signal for separation was issued by a time-program device after the end of the brake installation. If, for some reason, the signal did not pass, the ship's temperature sensors triggered, generating the same signal to increase the ambient temperature upon entry into the atmosphere. The separation impulse was provided by a reliable spring pusher in the center of the front removable bottom of the instrument compartment.

Of course, all these and other systems of the ship required testing in space, so Sergei Korolev decided to start with the launch of a simpler prototype ship (now it would be called a "technology demonstrator"), which appeared in the documents under the index "1KP" ("The Simplest Ship") .

"1KP" was quite noticeably different from the final version of the "Vostok". It had no thermal protection, life support systems and means of ejection. But it was equipped with a solar panel unit and a new short-wave radio station "Signal", created at NII-695 for the prompt transmission of part of the telemetry information and reliable direction finding of the ship. To compensate for the missing weight (and inertia), a ton of iron bars were laid on the ship. After that, the mass of "1KP" began to correspond to the design - 4540 kg.

On May 15, 1960, the R-7A launch vehicle with the E lunar block (8K72, Vostok-L, No. L1-11) was launched from the Tyura-Tam test site. She successfully launched "1KP" into orbit with an altitude of 312 km at perigee and 369 km at apogee. The device received the official name "The first spacecraft-satellite". Four days later, on a signal from the Earth, a command was given to turn on the TDU. However, the orientation system based on the infrared vertical failed. Instead of slowing down, the ship accelerated and climbed into a higher orbit (307 km at perigee and 690 km at apogee). He remained there until 1965. If there had been a pilot on board, his death would have been inevitable.

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was not upset at all by this failure. He was sure that next time he would be able to bring the ship in the right direction. The main thing is that TDU-1 worked, and the transition to a higher orbit was a valuable experiment in itself, demonstrating well the capabilities of orientable spacecraft.

Government Decree of June 4, 1960 No. 587-2z8ss "On the plan for the exploration of outer space for 1960 and the first half of 1961" ship launch dates were set. In May 1960, two 1KP spacecraft were to be sent into orbit; until August 1960 - three 1K ships, created to test the main ship systems and photo reconnaissance equipment; in the period from September to December 1960 - two 3K spacecraft with a full-fledged life support system (the first cosmonaut was to fly on this).

Time, as usual, was short. Therefore, the designers decided not to repeat the launch of "1KP", but immediately prepare "1K".

Spaceship-satellite "1K" (drawing by A. Shlyadinsky)

The new ship differed from the "simple" one primarily by the presence of thermal protection and an ejection container with experimental animals, which was one of the options for a container for future human flights. An animal cabin with a tray, a feeding machine, a sewage device and a ventilation system, ejection and pyrotechnic means, radio transmitters for direction finding, television cameras with a system of illumination and mirrors were placed in the container.

Onboard transmitting camera system "Seliger"

It was very important to check the TV camera - the designers expected to observe the future cosmonaut all the time of the flight. It was created by the same Leningrad engineers from the television NII-380, who developed the Yenisei complex for Luna-3. The new system was called "Seliger" and included two transmitting cameras LI-23 weighing 3 kg each and sets of receiving equipment placed on NPCs. Transmission quality - 100 elements per line, 100 lines per frame, frequency - 10 frames per second. It seems that a little, but quite enough to observe the behavior of experimental animals or a pilot strapped into the seat. After testing and "interfacing" with the radio transmitting equipment of the ship, the Seliger equipment sets, traditionally installed in automobile "kungs", were sent to IP-1 (Tyura-Tam), NIP-9 (Krasnoye Selo), NIP-10 (Simferopol) , NIP-4 (Yeniseysk) and NIP-6 (Yelizovo). In the Moscow region, the Seliger receiving station was located at the measuring point of the test site of the Design Bureau of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute in Medvezhye Lakes. At the beginning of the summer, a special aircraft flew around the NPCs, which became obligatory, on which equipment was installed that simulated the operation of satellite or spacecraft systems. The test passed satisfactorily, and the identified failures were quickly eliminated.

Since this time the descent vehicle was supposed to return to Earth, it was equipped with a parachute system created by the Scientific Research Experimental Institute of the Parachute Service (NIEI PDS) together with plant No. 81 of the State Committee for Aviation Technology (GKAT). The descent vehicle released its parachute at a signal from barometric sensors at an altitude of about 10 km, and after descending to an altitude of 7–8 km, the hatch cover was fired and the container with animals ejected.

Another innovation was the ship's thermal control system, created in OKB-1: no one wanted new dogs, and then the astronaut died from overheating, like the unfortunate Laika. A similar system of the third satellite ("Object D") was adopted as a basis. To cool the internal volume, a unit with a liquid-air radiator was used. The liquid refrigerant entered the radiator from a so-called radiant heat exchanger installed in the instrument compartment and associated with shutters that opened as needed, allowing excess heat to be discarded by radiation from the surface of the heat exchanger.

Finally, everything was ready, and on July 28, 1960, the R-7A rocket (Vostok-L, No. L1-10) was launched at the Tyura-Tam training ground. Under its head fairing was the ship "1K" No. 1 with the dogs Chanterelle and Chaika on board. And again, the "seven" showed its difficult character. At the 24th second of the flight, due to the high-frequency oscillations that arose, the combustion chamber of block G exploded. Ten seconds later, the “package” fell apart, falling on the territory of the test site, in the immediate vicinity of IP-1. The descent vehicle crashed on impact with the ground, the dogs died.

The real reason for the hesitation was never found out, writing it off as a deviation from technological norms made at the Kuibyshev plant No. 1. Korolev was very upset by this catastrophe - the red Chanterelle was his favorite.

The terrible death of the dogs spurred the designers to create a reliable emergency rescue system (SAS) at the breeding stage. The chief designer himself took part in this development, very concerned about the large number of missile failures in the first minutes of the flight. Boris Suprun and Vladimir Yazdovsky were directly involved in the project.

The emergency rescue system worked as follows. If the failure occurred before the 40th second of the flight, then at the signal given from the bunker, the container with the astronaut ejected. If the rocket began to behave abnormally in the interval from the 40th to the 150th second of the flight, its engines were turned off, and when the rocket fell to 7 km, ejection was carried out according to the standard scheme. If something went wrong from the 150th to the 700th second, the engines were turned off again, and the entire descent vehicle separated. In the event of a malfunction of block "E", which could occur between the 700th and 730th seconds of the flight, its own engine was turned off, but the entire ship was separated.

However, the problem of rescue in the first 15–20 seconds of the flight did not have a satisfactory solution. It was enough to hang metal nets in the area of ​​​​the alleged fall of the astronaut after his ejection - after all, the parachute in this case simply would not have had time to open. But even if the astronaut survived in such a situation, the flames of the fire could reach him.

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was worried that the pilot could not be saved at these fatal seconds, but since it was impossible to delay the work, the chief designer decided that in this situation a manned launch should be made only after two successful flights of a fully assembled unmanned spacecraft.

The next launch was prepared with great care. On August 16, a ceremonial removal of the rocket to the launch site took place with the expectation of launching it the next day. Unexpectedly, the main oxygen valve on the carrier was rejected, and the launch had to be delayed until a new one was brought from Kuibyshev on a special flight. Most of all, doctors were worried about this. They assured that the experimental dogs from the unusual situation of the starting position would “go crazy” before they got to space. But the animals stoically endured the delay.

On August 19, 1960, at 11 hours 44 minutes 7 seconds Moscow time, the R-7A launch vehicle (Vostok-L, No. L1-12) successfully launched from the Tyura-Tam test site. She put into orbit an altitude of 306 km at perigee and 339 km at apogee, an unmanned spacecraft "1K" No. 2 weighing 4600 kg, which received the official name "Second Spacecraft-Satellite". On board were the dogs Belka and Strelka.

Photo of Strelka taken with the Seliger system (the first image of a living being taken from space)

Both dogs were small and light colored. Squirrel weighed four and a half kilograms, Strelka - a kilogram more. Like Laika, blood pressure, electrocardiogram, heart sounds, respiratory rate, body temperature and motor activity were recorded in the new astronaut dogs. They were not alone in orbit: in a separate sealed container located in the same ejection unit, there were two white rats and twelve white and black mice, insects, plants and fungi. Twenty-eight mice and two rats were placed outside the ejection container. In addition, bags of seeds of various varieties of corn, wheat and peas were placed in the descent vehicle to test the impact of space flight on their yields.

Dogs triumphantly returned to Earth

Animals were observed using the Seliger system with two television cameras that filmed dogs from the front and in profile. On Earth, the image was captured on film. Thanks to this survey, as well as the decoding of medical parameters, it turned out that on the fourth and sixth turns, Belka behaved extremely restlessly, fought, tried to free herself from her seat belts, and barked loudly. Then she threw up. Later, this fact influenced the choice of the duration of the first human flight - one turn.

Before the descent from orbit, the main orientation system, built on the infrared vertical of the IKV, again failed. Sergei Korolev was furious, but he was reassured, explaining that this was a good chance to test a backup system that navigates the Sun.

On August 20, NIP-4 (Yeniseisk) issued a command to launch the Granit time program device, which ensures the sequence of descent operations. NIP-6 (Yelizovo) confirmed that Granit is working accurately, sending timestamps on the air. The TDU-1 was activated, the descent vehicle separated from the instrument compartment, entered the atmosphere and landed in the Orsk-Kostanay-Amangeldy triangle with a deviation of only 10 km from the calculated point. He stayed in space for 1 day, 2 hours and 23 minutes, making 17 orbits around the Earth.

Unlike previous dogs, whose nicknames and the fact of death were kept secret for a long time, Belka and Strelka became famous. In many Soviet schools, after the return of the ship, special lessons were held on a good attitude towards mongrels. They say that the demand for outbred puppies has increased sharply at the Bird Market in Moscow.

The dogs quickly rehabilitated after the flight. Later, Strelka twice brought healthy offspring - six puppies. Each of them was registered and personally responsible for him. In August 1961, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev sent a puppy named Fluffy as a gift to Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of the President of the United States.

Puppy Fluffy - the son of the four-legged cosmonaut Strelka, born after the flight and donated by Jacqueline Kennedy

And the ill-fated IKV system, which failed for the second time, was decided to be removed from future ships. The solar orientation system became the main one - two micromotor control loops were brought to it, leaving the third for the pilot.

Inspired by the successful flight of Belka and Strelka, the rocket scientists scheduled the launch of the manned spacecraft for December 1960. The government supported them. On October 11, 1960, the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers No. 1110-462ss was issued, which ordered "to prepare and launch the Vostok spacecraft with a man on board in December 1960 and consider this a task of special importance." However, the first serious success was followed by a long series of failures and even tragedies.

In September 1960, the so-called astronomical window formed, suitable for launching vehicles to Mars. Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was going to seize priority here too by sending an automatic station to the red planet and photographing its mysterious "channels" nearby. Already for this station, Professor Alexander Ignatievich Lebedinsky from Moscow State University prepared a block of equipment, including a photo-television device and a spectroreflexometer, designed to determine whether there is life on Mars. Korolev offered to test this block in the Kazakh steppe first. To the delight of the rocket scientists, the device showed that there was no life on Tyura-Tama. As a result, Lebedinsky's equipment was left on Earth.

The station "1M" weighing 500 kg was going to be launched using a new modification of the rocket - a four-stage "R-7A" (8K78), equipped with upper stages "I" and "L". Later, the rocket received the beautiful name "Lightning".

The engine for block "I" was designed by the Voronezh OKB-154 Semyon Arievich Kosberg, and in block "L" the liquid-propellant rocket engine of the closed circuit S1.5400 (11DEZ), developed in OKB-1, was used for the first time.

Due to delays in the preparation of the spacecraft and the rocket, the launch was delayed all the time. In the end, when there was no longer any hope that the station would pass near the red planet, the launch took place. On October 10, 1960, the Molniya launch vehicle (8K78, No. L1-4M) with the 1M apparatus No. 1 left the launch pad. However, she immediately crashed.

The cause was established fairly quickly. Even at the site of operation of block "A" (second stage), resonant oscillations began to grow in block "I" (third stage). As a result of the strongest vibration, the command circuit along the pitch channel was violated, and the rocket began to deviate from the trajectory. The engine of block "I" turned on, but worked for only 13 seconds before the failure of the control system at the 301st second of flight. The upper stages, together with the automatic station, collapsed upon entering the dense layers of the atmosphere over Eastern Siberia; the remnants of the rocket fell 320 km northwest of Novosibirsk.

Rocket "R-16" designed by Mikhail Yangel at the Tyura-Tam training ground

Feverishly prepared the second launch of rocket No. L1-5M with automatic station "M1" No. 2. It took place on October 14th. And again the accident. This time, the tightness of the liquid oxygen supply system was broken. The kerosene valve of the "I" block, doused with liquid oxygen, froze, and the engine could not start. The third stage and station burned up in the atmosphere. Rocket fragments fell in the Novosibirsk region.

Mars remained inaccessible. The dejected rocket men returned to Moscow, and then terrible news caught up with them - on October 24, 1960, a disaster occurred at the Tyura-Tam training ground.

On that day, at the 41st launch pad, the R-16 combat intercontinental missile (8K64, No. LD1-3T) designed by Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel was being prepared for launch. After refueling, a malfunction was detected in the engine automation. In such cases, safety required to drain the fuel and only then troubleshoot. But then the launch schedule would certainly have been disrupted, and we would have to report to the government. Marshal Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin, Commander-in-Chief of the Missile Forces, made the fateful decision to fix the problem right on the fueled rocket. She was surrounded by dozens of specialists, rising to the required level through service farms. Nedelin himself personally observed the progress of work, sitting on a stool twenty meters from the rocket. As usual, he was surrounded by a retinue, consisting of the heads of ministries and chief designers of various systems. When the thirty-minute readiness was announced, power was supplied to the programming device. At the same time, a failure occurred, and an unplanned command to turn on the second stage engines passed. A jet of hot gases hit from a height of several tens of meters. Many, including the marshal, died immediately, without even having time to understand what had happened. Others tried to flee, tearing off their burning clothes. But they were held back by a barbed wire fence that surrounded the launch pad on all sides. People simply evaporated in hellish flames - all that remained of them were the outlines of figures on scorched earth, bunches of keys, coins, belt buckles. Marshal Nedelin was subsequently identified by the preserved "Star of the Hero".

A total of 92 people died in that crash. More than 50 people were injured and burned. The designer Mikhail Yangel survived thanks to an accident - he went to smoke just before the explosion ...

All of the above accidents were not directly related to the Vostok program, but they indirectly affected it. The mourning events, the investigation of the causes of the disaster and the elimination of its consequences took a considerable amount of time. Only in early December, Korolev's team was able to start launching spacecraft.

The resumption of testing turned into new problems: on December 1, 1960, the R-7A rocket (Vostok-L, No. L1-13) launched the 1K No. Fly on board. The parameters of the orbit were chosen by the ballisticians in such a way that in the event of a failure of the TDU-1, the ship descended from it on its own. The perigee was 180 km, the apogee was 249 km.

The fact that there were dogs in the satellite ship was announced openly, so the whole world followed the space travel of the mongrels with great interest. In the daily flight, the ship behaved normally, but during the descent it was suddenly destroyed by the object's emergency detonation system (APO).

During the investigation into the reasons for the death of the ship, the following was revealed: the detonation system was installed at the request of the military - it was intended for Zenit (2K) photo reconnaissance officers and was needed so that secret equipment and films with captured objects did not fall into the hands of a "potential enemy". If the descent trajectory turned out to be too gentle - this was determined by the overload sensor - and there was a possibility of landing on the territory of another state, the APS worked and destroyed the spacecraft.

A minor malfunction in the brake propulsion system prompted the ship to this sad option. The fact is that the operating time of TDU-1 is 44 seconds. All this time, she had to strictly navigate in space along the orbital velocity vector, otherwise the ship would simply tumble. Alexey Mikhailovich Isaev, the designer of the brake system, found an elegant solution - to stabilize it with gases flowing from the gas generator, feeding them into a set of steering nozzles that were installed around the main nozzle of the TDU-1. Looks like one of the steering nozzles was damaged. Because of this, the ship went off the calculated trajectory, after which the APS worked.

Of course, the details of the incident were classified. The official TASS report only said that "due to the descent along an off-design trajectory, the satellite ship ceased to exist upon entering the dense layers of the atmosphere." A more vague wording is hard to come up with. Besides, she raised questions. What does "off-design trajectory" mean? Why did it lead to the death of the ship? But what if a manned spacecraft enters an "off-design trajectory"? Will he die too?

Preparation of the descent vehicle of the spacecraft "1K" No. 6 for transportation from the landing site

The launch of "1K" No. 6 took place three weeks later, on December 22, 1960 (rocket "Vostok-L", No. L1-13A). The passengers were dogs Zhemchuzhnaya and Zhulka, mice, rats and other small animals. The command to start the engine of block "E" passed at the 322nd second - with a delay of three seconds. This short time was enough to prevent the spacecraft from entering orbit. The new emergency rescue system worked great. The descent vehicle separated from the ship and landed 60 km from the village of Tura in the area of ​​the Nizhnyaya Tunguska River.

Everyone decided that the dogs were dead, but Sergei Pavlovich Korolev believed in the best and insisted on organizing a search. The State Commission sent a search group to Yakutia, headed by Arvid Vladimirovich Pallo. This veteran of rocket technology had to find the remains of a spaceship in deserted Yakutia in severe frosts. His group included a specialist in the disposal of the APO charge and, just in case, a representative of the Institute of Aviation Medicine. Local authorities and aviation with great readiness fulfilled all the requirements of Pallo. Soon, search helicopters found colored parachutes along the route indicated by them. The descent vehicle lay unharmed.

Upon inspection, it was found that the hermetic plate of the cable mast connecting the compartments had not separated. This violated the logic in the operation of the ship's systems, and the APO was blocked. In addition, the container did not eject, but remained inside the descent vehicle protected by thermal insulation. If he had gone out, as expected, the dogs would inevitably have died from the cold, otherwise they were alive and quite healthy.

Pallo's group, with great care, proceeded to open the hatches and disconnect all electrical circuits - any mistake could lead to the detonation of the APO charge. The dogs were taken out, wrapped in a sheepskin coat and urgently sent to Moscow, like the most valuable cargo. Pallo remained in place for a few more days, supervising the evacuation of the lander.

Thus ended 1960, perhaps the most difficult year in the history of Soviet cosmonautics.

In parallel with the flight tests of the 1K ships, the OKB-1 design sector, headed by Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov, was actively working on the 3K manned spacecraft.

In August 1960, the designers found an opportunity to speed up its creation by abandoning some of the systems provided for in the initial project. It was decided not to install a descent control system, abandon the development of a pressurized cosmonaut capsule, replacing it with an ejection seat, simplify the control panel, etc. The simplified Vostok project for human flight received an additional letter "A" and began to be indexed "3KA".

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev continued to worry about the braking propulsion system. He believed that one "TDU-1" does not provide sufficient reliability of descent from orbit, and demanded that the ship be redesigned. Feoktistov's sector began to study. To install even the simplest powder engine, an additional several hundred kilograms of weight were required, and there was no such reserve. To fulfill Korolev's instructions, it would be necessary to remove some of the much-needed on-board equipment, which again led to a sharp decrease in the reliability of the ship. The layout would also change, and behind it, the strength characteristics. Under such conditions, the results of 1K launches could be immediately forgotten and new prototypes could be prepared.

Spaceship-satellite "Vostok" ("ZKA") (drawing by A. Shlyadinsky)

Spaceship "Vostok": view from the side of the cable mast (drawing by A. Shlyadinsky)

Spaceship "Vostok": view of the ejection hatch (drawing by A. Shlyadinsky)

I had to convince the Queen to abandon his decision. However, Sergei Pavlovich insisted on its implementation, for which he personally prepared and approved the document “Initial data for the design of Ship 3K”, according to which it was necessary to mount a double propulsion system on Vostok. A conflict was brewing. Feoktistov brought together leading sector workers to discuss the "Basic Data". They unanimously agreed that Sergei Pavlovich's order was erroneous. Deputy Queen for Design Affairs

Konstantin Davydovich Bushuev notified the designer about the rebellion of the designers. At an urgently convened meeting, Korolev listened attentively to the opinions of the sector's employees and was forced to agree with them. The 3KA ship had to be designed with minimal modifications on the basis of the 1K ship.

The cabin of the ship "Vostok"

By that time, aviation organizations had joined the process of creating the ship, and above all the famous Flight Research Institute (LII), which was headed by Nikolai Sergeevich Stroev. In April 1960, the designers of OKB-1 came to Laboratory No. 47 of the LII and showed sketches of the remote control of the future spacecraft with a request to express a competent opinion. Inspired by an interesting task, the laboratory staff came up with their own versions of the control panel and dashboard, which were approved by Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. By November, fully finished kits were handed over to the customer. At the same time, the manufacture of the simulator began, on which all the cosmonauts who participated in the Vostok program subsequently underwent training.

Information display and signaling system SIS-1-3KA of the Vostok ship: 1 - dashboard PD-1-3KA; 2 - two-coordinate control knob for the orientation of the spacecraft RU-1A; 3 - control panel PU-1-3KA

The instrument panel was directly in front of the astronaut at arm's length. Toggle switches, buttons, signal displays, three-pointer indicators were borrowed from aviation. Since on Vostok the process of descent from orbit was “tied” to the Granit time program device, a descent mode control device (DCR) was created. The "highlight" was the device "Globe", located on the left side of the board. It really looked like a small globe - through a special device, its rotation was synchronized with the movement of the ship in orbit. Looking at the device, the Vostok pilot could see what territory he was currently over. Moreover, when a special toggle switch was switched to the “Landing Place” position, the globe turned and showed where the ship would approximately land if the braking propulsion system was started right now. On the control panel, which was located to the left of the pilot, the designers placed the handles and switches necessary to control the radiotelephone system, regulate the temperature and humidity inside the cabin, and also turn on the manual control of the orientation system and the brake engine.

Scheme of landing of the descent module of the Vostok spacecraft (© RSC Energia): 1 – opening of the hatch, ejection of the pilot in the seat at an altitude of 7000 m; 2 - the introduction of a brake parachute; 3 - stabilization and descent on a brake parachute to a height of 4000 m; 4 - introduction of the main parachute, separation of the seat at an altitude of 4000 m; 5 - department of NAZ, automatic filling of the boat at an altitude of 2000 m; 6 - landing at a speed of 5 m / s; 7 - shooting of the hatch, the introduction of a pilot chute, the introduction of a braking parachute at an altitude of 4000 m; 8 - descent on a braking parachute to a height of 2000 m, introduction of the main parachute; 9 - landing at a speed of 10 m / s

The rejection of the pressurized cosmonaut's cabin required the refinement of the entire system for leaving the descent vehicle and the introduction of some changes in the landing scheme. They decided not to design a new chair, but simply “stripped” the cabin, removing its protective shell. This work was supervised by the head of Laboratory No. 24 of the Flight Research Institute, Gai Ilyich Severin. The seats themselves and test dummies were manufactured at the plant number 918 of the Ministry of Aviation Industry in Tomilino, Moscow Region. The new scheme for leaving the descent vehicle was tested in conditions close to “combat” ones: first, chairs with dummies were thrown from the aircraft, then test parachutists Valery Ivanovich Golovin and Petr Ivanovich Dolgov sat down in place of the dummies.

The result was a scheme that seemed complex and risky, but eliminated many technical problems. At an altitude of 7 km, the pilot chute came out of the descent vehicle, at an altitude of 4 km - a braking parachute, and at an altitude of 2.5 km - the main one. The astronaut in the seat ejected at a speed of 20 m/s even before the pilot chute exited. At first, the chair released a stabilizing parachute to stop a possible tumbling. At an altitude of 4 km, he unhooked, and the cosmonaut's main parachute came into action, which literally pulled him out of his "familiar place" - the cosmonaut and the chair also landed separately. The reserve parachute was introduced in case of failure of the main one. The landing speed was not to exceed 5 m/s for the astronaut and 10 m/s for the descent vehicle. By the way, in the event of a failure of the hatch ejection and ejection systems, an astronaut landing inside the ball was provided - this would have been a hard landing (after all, no soft landing devices or shock absorbers were provided), but in any case, the person remained alive. The greatest concern among the designers was the possibility of "brewing" the hatch - then the pilot would not be able to get out of the apparatus on his own, which threatened him with serious trouble.

To observe outer space in the descent vehicle, three holes were cut under the portholes. The first was located above the pilot's head - in the fired-off hatch cover. The second was located above and to the right, and the third was arranged directly under the pilot's feet, in the cover of the technological hatch - an optical orientator "Vzor" was attached to it, with the help of which the astronaut could orient the ship in space when switching to manual control.

The development of the portholes was taken over by the Research Institute of Technical Glass of Minaviaprom. The task turned out to be extremely difficult. The production of aircraft lamps was also mastered at one time for a long and difficult time - under the influence of an oncoming air flow, the glass quickly became covered with cracks, losing transparency. The war forced the development of armored glass, but even they were not suitable for spaceships. In the end, they settled on quartz glass, more precisely, on its two brands - SK and KV (the latter is fused quartz). The windows proved to be very good both in space and during descent in the atmosphere, under the influence of a temperature of several thousand degrees - there were never any problems with them. If sunlight began to beat through the porthole, which prevented the astronaut from working, he could always lower the curtain by flipping the corresponding toggle switch on the remote control (“Vzor”, “Right” or “Rear”).

A variety of radio equipment was installed on the Vostok. The pilot was allocated several communication channels at once, which were provided by the Zarya radiotelephone system operating in the short wave (9.019 and 20.006 MHz) and ultrashort wave (143.625 MHz) bands. The VHF channel was used to communicate with NPCs at distances up to 2000 km and, as experience has shown, made it possible to negotiate with the Earth over most of the orbit.

In addition, the spacecraft had a "Signal" radio system (short waves at a frequency of 19.995 MHz), designed for the prompt transmission of data on the astronaut's well-being. It was accompanied by a duplicate set of Rubin radio equipment, which provided trajectory measurements, and the Tral P1 radio telemetry system.

Of course, quite comfortable living conditions were created inside the descent vehicle. After all, in the event of a failure of the braking system, the astronaut could stay there for a week. Containers with a supply of food, a tank with canned water (you could drink it through a mouthpiece), and containers for collecting waste were fixed in special cabin racks.

The air conditioning system maintained normal atmospheric pressure, air temperature between 15 and 22 °C and relative humidity between 30 and 70%. At the beginning of the design of Vostok, the designers faced the choice of the optimal atmosphere inside the spacecraft (normal or oxygenated). The latter option made it possible to reduce the pressure in the ship and thereby reduce the overall weight of the life support system. That is exactly what the Americans did. However, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev insisted on a normal atmosphere - in the "oxygen" from any spark a fire could start, and the pilot had nowhere to get out. Time has confirmed the correctness of the chief designer - it was the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the ship that became one of the reasons for the rapid and terrible death of the Apollo-1 crew.

So, the final layout of the "East" was determined. At that time, it was a truly unique device that incorporated the latest technology. In his various systems, 421 electron tubes, more than 600 semiconductor transistors, 56 electric motors, about 800 relays and switches were used. The total length of electric cables was 15 km!

The 3KA ship was a little heavier than the 1K (if the 1K No. 5 weighed 4563 kg, the unmanned 3KA No. 1 weighed 4700 kg). Of course, the weight of the first manned "Vostok" was going to be lightened as much as possible, but Korolev had big plans for using such ships in the future, and he was not satisfied with the carrying capacity of the lunar block "E". Therefore, the Voronezh OKB-154 Semyon Arievich Kosberg received the terms of reference for the design of a more advanced engine based on the RO-5.

The RO-7 engine (RD-0109, 8D719) on a kerosene-oxygen fuel mixture was created in one year and three months.

Engine RD-0109 (RO-7) for the third stage of the Vostok rocket

With the new third stage, the rocket, which received the name "Vostok" (8K72K) after the ship, acquired a complete look. But the refinement of the units, additional tests and engine burns took time, so the rocket scientists did not meet the deadlines - the new ships were prepared only by February 1961. In addition, the striking forces of OKB-1 again had to be diverted to launch interplanetary stations into the "astronomical window". This time the "morning star" Venus was in the spotlight.

It is time to rehabilitate for the failure of the Martian program. The first launch of the four-stage Mechta rocket (8K78, No. L1-7B) with the 1VA automatic station No. 1 on board took place on February 4. The station entered near-Earth orbit, but the current converter in the power supply system of the booster block "L" failed (this converter was not designed to work in a vacuum), the engine of the block did not start, and the station remained in near-Earth space.

Three-stage launch vehicle "Vostok" (drawing by A. Shlyadinsky)

As usual, no problems were reported - in the open press it was only said that a "heavy scientific satellite" had been put into orbit. In the West, the station "1VA" No. 1 was dubbed "Sputnik-7", and for a long time there was a rumor that there was a pilot on it who died during the flight, and therefore his name was classified.

The new "space" year began unsuccessfully, but the Soviet rocket scientists managed to reverse the negative trend. The ill-fated current converter at the next block "L" was sealed, and on February 12, "Lightning" (8K78, No. L1-6B) was launched, which launched the Venusian station "1VA" No. 2 into space. This time everything went almost perfectly - the device left with Earth orbit and was awarded the official name "Venus-1". Problems appeared later. According to telemetry data, the shutter drive of the thermal control system failed, which disrupted the temperature regime inside the instrument compartment of the station. In addition, unstable operation of Venera-1 was recorded in the mode of constant solar orientation, which is necessary for charging batteries from solar panels. The "rough" orientation mode was automatically launched with the device spinning around the axis directed to the Sun, and turning off, to save energy, almost all systems, except for the program-time device. In this mode, communication was carried out through an omnidirectional antenna, and the next communication session could start automatically on command only after five days.

Venera-1 interplanetary spacecraft (© NASA)

On February 17, NIP-16 near Evpatoria got in touch with Venera-1. The distance to the station at that time was 1.9 million km. Telemetry data again showed failure of the thermal control system and failures in solar orientation mode. This session was the last - the station stopped responding to signals.

Information about the problems on Venera-1 was hidden, and for many years various publications claimed that the station had fully completed the scientific program. However, this does not matter, because the main thing is that for the first time in history, a pennant made on Earth went to another planet in the solar system. And it was a Soviet pennant ...

The launch of Venera-1 is also notable for the fact that a new floating measuring point proved to be in action, deployed this time not in the Pacific, but in the Atlantic Ocean. The decision to send NPCs to the Atlantic was made based on the results of the flights of the 1K ships - a vast “blind” zone remained on the world map, inaccessible to the radars and radio systems of the Command and Measurement Complex. And this was a very important area, because in order to land on the inhabited part of the territory of the Soviet Union, the ship had to slow down somewhere over Africa, and before that it was not bad to make sure that everything was in order on board. In an exceptionally short time (April - May 1960), the vessels of the Ministry of the Navy were rented and prepared for sailing. Motor ships "Krasnodar" and "Voroshilov" were reequipped at the berths of the commercial sea port of Odessa, the motor ship "Dolinsk" - in Leningrad. Each ship was equipped with two sets of Tral radio telemetry stations.

At that time, there were no ready-made sets of these stations in the warehouses of the manufacturer - they were transported to ground NPCs. Almost the entire range of equipment had to be collected almost from the dumps of defense industry enterprises. The units brought into working condition were debugged, tested, packaged and sent in containers to the ports of registry of the ships. It is interesting that the "Trawls" were mounted in the classic automobile version, and then they simply removed the "kung" from the chassis and lowered it entirely into the hold of the ship.

If the issue was somehow resolved with the staffing of the main telemetric equipment, then with the Bamboo equipment of the Universal Time Service, the situation was completely different. By the scheduled exit on the first flights, they did not have time to make it at all. By agreement with OKB-1, it was decided to link the received data to world time using a marine chronometer, which gave an accuracy of half a second. Of course, it had to be checked frequently.

On August 1, 1960, the vessels of the Atlantic Measurement Complex set out on their first voyage. Each was an expedition consisting of a dozen employees of NII-4. During the four-month voyage, the technology of telemetric measurements was perfected. However, in the "combat" conditions, the ships showed themselves precisely in February 1961, taking data from the upper stages of the Venusian stations "1VA".

The hiking conditions were far from comfortable. People who first came to the tropics could not get used to them for a long time. The buildings of the 1920s, allocated for rent, did not have basic household equipment. The expedition staff worked in the cargo holds under the main deck, which was heated in the morning under the hot rays of the sun. To avoid heat strokes, they tried to carry out training and turning on the equipment in the morning and at night. At the same time, they worked naked. Because of the heat, there were failures and fires of equipment. But the crews coped and showed themselves perfectly in the spring, when new spaceships went into space.

On March 9, 1961, at 09:29 Moscow time, the three-stage Vostok launch vehicle launched from the first site of the Tyura-Tam test site and launched the ZKA spacecraft No. 1 ("The Fourth Spacecraft-Satellite"). It was the heaviest unmanned satellite ship - it weighed 4700 kg. Its flight exactly reproduced the single orbit flight of a manned spacecraft.

Four-legged testers of the ships "1K" and "3KA": Zvezdochka, Chernushka, Strelka and Belka

The pilot's ejection seat was occupied by a mannequin dressed in a space suit, nicknamed by the testers "Ivan Ivanovich". In his chest and abdominal cavity, specialists from the State Research Institute of Aviation Medicine placed cages with mice and guinea pigs. In the non-ejection part of the descent vehicle there was a container with the dog Chernushka.

The flight itself went well. But after deceleration, the pressure plate of the cable mast did not shoot off, which is why the descent vehicle did not separate from the instrument compartment - this could result in the death of the ship. Due to the high temperature during reentry, the cable mast burned down, and separation did occur. An unforeseen failure led to the flight of the calculated point by 412 km. However, following a discussion at a meeting of the State Commission, the tests were recognized as successful, and the risk to the future cosmonaut was acceptable.

Soviet newspapers wrote: “A miracle of modern technology - a spacecraft weighing 4700 kilograms not only flew around the Earth, but also landed in a given area of ​​the Soviet Union. This exceptional achievement of our conquerors of space was met with great admiration by the whole world. Now no one doubts that the wonderful genius of the Soviet people in the near future will realize their most daring dream - to send a man into space.

April 12, 1961 at 9:07 Moscow time, a few tens of kilometers north of the village of Tyuratam in Kazakhstan at the Soviet Baikonur cosmodrome, an intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 was launched, in the nose compartment of which the Vostok manned spacecraft with Air Force Major Yury was located Alekseevich Gagarin on board. The launch was successful. The spacecraft was launched into an orbit with an inclination of 65°, a perigee altitude of 181 km and an apogee altitude of 327 km, and completed one revolution around the Earth in 89 minutes. On the 108th minute after launch, he returned to Earth, landing near the village of Smelovka, Saratov Region.

The Vostok spacecraft (SC) was created by a group of scientists and engineers led by the founder of practical astronautics, S.P. Korolev. The spacecraft consisted of two compartments. The descent vehicle, which was also the cosmonaut's cabin, was a sphere 2.3 m in diameter, covered with an ablative (melting when heated) material for thermal protection during atmospheric entry. The spacecraft was controlled automatically, as well as by the astronaut. During the flight, radio contact with the Earth was continuously maintained. An astronaut in a spacesuit was placed in an aircraft-type ejection seat equipped with a parachute system and communications equipment. In the event of an accident, small rocket motors at the base of the chair fired it through a round hatch. The ship's atmosphere is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen at a pressure of 1 atm (760 mm Hg).

The manned compartment (descent vehicle) was attached to the instrument compartment with metal straps. All equipment not directly required in the descent vehicle was located in the instrument compartment. It contained life support system cylinders with nitrogen and oxygen, chemical batteries for the radio installation and instruments, a brake propulsion system (TDU) to reduce the speed of the spacecraft during the transition to the descent trajectory from orbit, and small orientation thrusters. "Vostok-1" had a mass of 4730 kg, and with the last stage of the launch vehicle 6170 kg.

The calculation of the trajectory of the return of the Vostok spacecraft to Earth was carried out using a computer, the necessary commands were transmitted to the spacecraft by radio. The attitude thrusters provided the appropriate angle of entry of the spacecraft into the atmosphere. Upon reaching the desired position, the braking propulsion system was turned on, and the speed of the ship decreased. Then the pyrobolts tore apart the tie-down bands connecting the descent vehicle with the instrument compartment, and the descent vehicle began its "fiery dive" into the Earth's atmosphere. At an altitude of about 7 km, the entrance hatch fired back from the descent vehicle and the seat with the astronaut ejected. The parachute opened, after a while the chair was dropped so that the astronaut would not hit it when landing. Gagarin was the only Vostok cosmonaut who remained in the descent vehicle until landing and did not use the ejection seat. All subsequent cosmonauts who flew on Vostok spacecraft ejected. The descent vehicle of the Vostok spacecraft landed separately on its own parachute.

SCHEME OF THE SPACESHIP "VOSTOK-1"

"Vostok-1"
1 Antenna of the command radio link system.
2 Communication antenna.
3 Cover for electrical connectors
4 Entrance hatch.
5 Food container.
6 Tie-down straps.
7 Ribbon antennas.
8 Brake motor.
9 Communication antennas.
10 Service hatches.
11 Instrument compartment with main systems.
12 Ignition wiring.
13 Cylinders of pneumatic system (16 pcs.)
for the life support system.
14 Ejection seat.
15 Radio antenna.
16 Porthole with optical orientation.
17 Technological hatch.
18 Television camera.
19 Thermal protection made of ablative material.
20 Block of electronic equipment.

This ship had two main compartments: a descent module with a diameter of 2.3 m and an instrument compartment. The control system is automatic, but the astronaut could transfer control to himself. With his right hand, he could orient the ship using a manual control device. With his left hand, he could turn on the emergency switch, which reset the access hatch and actuated the ejection seat. A cutout in the nose fairing of the launch vehicle allowed the astronaut to leave the ship in the event of a launch vehicle failure. When the spherical descent vehicle returned to the atmosphere, its position was automatically corrected. With increasing air pressure, the descent vehicle occupied the correct position.

Launch vehicles
The 2 ½-stage Vostok launch vehicle was based on a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile.
Its height together with the spacecraft is 38.4 m.
"Mercury-Atlas", which is also a modification of an intercontinental ballistic missile, had a total height of 29 m.
Both rockets are fueled by liquid oxygen and kerosene.

The Vostok spacecraft was launched into space 5 times, after which it was declared safe for human flight. Between May 15, 1960 and March 25, 1961, these spacecraft were launched into orbit under the name of the satellite ship. They housed dogs, mannequins and various biological objects. Four of these devices had returnable capsules with astronauts' chairs mounted in them. Three have been returned. The last two apparatuses of the series, before entering the atmosphere, performed like Vostok-1, one orbit around the Earth each. Others completed 17 turns, like Vostok-2.

The birth of the "Union"

The first manned satellites of the Vostok series (index 3KA) were created to solve a narrow range of tasks - firstly, to get ahead of the Americans, and, secondly, to determine the possibilities of life and work in space, to study the physiological reactions of a person to orbital factors. flight. The ship brilliantly coped with the assigned tasks. With its help, the first breakthrough of a man into space (“Vostok”) was carried out, the world’s first daily orbital mission (“Vostok-2”) took place, as well as the first group flights of manned vehicles (“Vostok-3” - “Vostok-4” and "Vostok-5" - "Vostok-6"). The first woman went into space also on this ship ("Vostok-6").

The development of this direction was the vehicles with indices 3KV and 3KD, with the help of which the first orbital flight of a crew of three cosmonauts (“Voskhod”) and the first manned spacewalk (“Voskhod-2”) were carried out.

However, even before all these records were set, it was clear to the leaders, designers and designers of the Royal Experimental Design Bureau (OKB-1) that not the Vostok, but another ship, more advanced and safe, would be better suited to solve promising problems, having extended capabilities, extended system life, convenient for work and comfortable for the life of the crew, providing more gentle descent modes and greater landing accuracy. To increase the scientific and applied "return" it was necessary to increase the size of the crew by introducing narrow specialists into it - doctors, engineers, scientists. In addition, already at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, it was obvious to the creators of space technology that in order to further explore outer space, it was necessary to master the technologies of rendezvous and docking in orbit to assemble stations and interplanetary complexes.

In the summer of 1959, OKB-1 began searching for the appearance of a promising manned spacecraft. After discussing the goals and objectives of the new product, it was decided to develop a fairly versatile device suitable for both near-Earth flights and lunar flyby missions. In 1962, as part of these studies, a project was initiated that received the cumbersome name "Spacecraft Assembly Complex in Earth Satellite Orbit" and the short code "Soyuz". The main task of the project, during the solution of which it was supposed to master the orbital assembly, was the flight around the moon. The manned element of the complex, which had the index 7K-9K-11K, was called the "ship" and the proper name "Soyuz".

Its fundamental difference from its predecessors was the possibility of docking with other vehicles of the 7K-9K-11K complex, flying over long distances (up to the orbit of the Moon), entering the earth's atmosphere at a second space velocity and landing in a given area of ​​the territory of the Soviet Union. A distinctive feature of the "Union" was the layout. It consisted of three compartments: household (BO), instrumental-aggregate (PAO) and descent vehicle (SA). This decision made it possible to provide an acceptable habitable volume for a crew of two or three people without a significant increase in the mass of the ship's structure. The fact is that the Vostokov and Voskhod descent vehicles, covered with a layer of thermal protection, contained systems needed not only for descent, but for the entire orbital flight. By moving them to other compartments that do not have heavy thermal protection, the designers could significantly reduce the total volume and mass of the descent vehicle, and, therefore, significantly lighten the entire ship.

I must say that according to the principles of division into compartments, the Soyuz was not much different from its overseas competitors - the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft. However, the Americans, who have a great advantage in the field of microelectronics with a high resource, managed to create relatively compact devices without dividing the living volume into independent compartments.

Due to the symmetrical flow around when returning from space, the spherical descent vehicles of Vostok and Voskhod could only perform an uncontrolled ballistic descent with rather large overloads and low accuracy. The experience of the first flights showed that these ships during landing could deviate from a given point by hundreds of kilometers, which greatly hampered the work of specialists in the search and evacuation of astronauts, sharply increasing the contingent of forces and means involved in solving this problem, often forcing them to disperse over a vast territory . For example, Voskhod-2 landed with a significant deviation from the calculated point in such a hard-to-reach place that the search engines were able to evacuate the crew of the ship only on the third (!) Day.

The Soyuz descent vehicle acquired a segmental-conical shape of a “headlight” and, when a certain centering was chosen, flew in the atmosphere with a balancing angle of attack. The asymmetric flow generated lift and gave the apparatus "aerodynamic quality". This term defines the ratio of lift to drag in the flow coordinate system at a given angle of attack. At the Soyuz, it did not exceed 0.3, but this was enough to increase the accuracy of landing by an order of magnitude (from 300-400 km to 5-10 km) and reduce G-forces by a factor of two (from 8-10 to 3-5 units). when descending, making landing much more comfortable.

The “Spacecraft Assembly Complex in Earth Satellite Orbit” was not implemented in its original form, but became the ancestor of numerous projects. The first was 7K-L1 (known under the open name "Zond"). In 1967-1970, under this program, 14 attempts were made to launch unmanned analogues of this manned spacecraft, 13 of which were aimed at flying around the moon. Alas, for various reasons, only three can be considered successful. Things did not come to manned missions: after the Americans flew around the moon and landed on the lunar surface, the interest of the country's leadership in the project faded, and 7K-L1 was closed.

The 7K-LOK lunar orbiter was part of the manned lunar complex N-1 - L-3. Between 1969 and 1972, the Soviet super-heavy rocket N-1 was launched four times, and each time with an accident. The only "almost full-time" 7K-LOK died in an accident on November 23, 1972 in the last launch of the carrier. In 1974, the project of the Soviet expedition to the moon was stopped, and in 1976 it was finally canceled.

For various reasons, both the "lunar" and "orbital" branches of the 7K-9K-11K project did not take root, but the family of manned spacecraft for carrying out "training" operations for rendezvous and docking in near-Earth orbit took place and was developed. It branched off from the Soyuz theme in 1964, when it was decided to work out the assembly not in lunar, but in near-Earth flights. This is how 7K-OK appeared, which inherited the name Soyuz. The main and auxiliary tasks of the initial program (controlled descent in the atmosphere, docking in near-Earth orbit in unmanned and manned versions, the transfer of astronauts from ship to ship through open space, the first record-breaking autonomous flights for the duration) were completed in 16 Soyuz launches (eight out of they passed in a manned version, under the "generic" name) until the summer of 1970.

⇡ Task optimization

At the very beginning of the 1970s, the Central Design Bureau of Experimental Machine Building (TsKBEM, as OKB-1 became known since 1966) based on the systems of the 7K-OK spacecraft and the body of the OPS Almaz manned orbital station, designed in OKB-52 V. N Chelomeya, developed a long-term orbital station DOS-7K ("Salyut"). The beginning of the operation of this system made autonomous flights of ships meaningless. Space stations provided a much larger volume of valuable results due to the longer work of astronauts in orbit and the availability of space for installing various complex research equipment. Accordingly, the ship delivering the crew to the station and returning it to Earth turned from a multi-purpose ship into a single-purpose transport ship. This task was entrusted to the manned vehicles of the 7K-T series, created on the basis of the Soyuz.

Two catastrophes of ships based on 7K-OK, which occurred in a relatively short period of time (Soyuz-1 on April 24, 1967 and Soyuz-11 on June 30, 1971), forced the developers to reconsider the safety concept of vehicles of this series and modernize a number of basic systems, which negatively affected the capabilities of the ships (the period of autonomous flight was sharply reduced, the crew was reduced from three to two astronauts, who now flew on critical sections of the trajectory dressed in emergency rescue suits).

The operation of the 7K-T type transport spacecraft continued to deliver cosmonauts to orbital stations of the first and second generation, but revealed a number of major shortcomings due to the imperfection of the Soyuz service systems. In particular, the control of the ship's movement in orbit was too "tied" to the ground infrastructure for tracking, controlling and issuing commands, and the algorithms used were not insured against errors. Since the USSR did not have the opportunity to place ground communication points along the entire surface of the globe along the route, the flight of spacecraft and orbital stations took place outside the radio visibility zone for a significant part of the time. Often the crew could not fend off emergency situations that occurred on the “deaf” part of the orbit, and the “man-machine” interfaces were so imperfect that they did not allow the astronaut to fully use the capabilities. The stock of fuel for maneuvering was insufficient, often preventing repeated docking attempts, for example, in case of difficulties during approach to the station. In many cases, this led to the disruption of the entire flight program.

To explain how the developers managed to deal with this and a number of other problems, we should step back a little in time. Inspired by the success of the head OKB-1 in the field of manned flights, the Kuibyshev branch of the enterprise - now the Progress Rocket and Space Center (RKC) - under the leadership of D. I. Kozlov in 1963 began design studies on the military research ship 7K-VI, which , among other things, was intended for reconnaissance missions. We will not discuss the very problem of the presence of a person on a photographic reconnaissance satellite, which now seems at least strange - we will only say that in Kuibyshev, on the basis of Soyuz technical solutions, the appearance of a manned vehicle was formed, which differs significantly from its progenitor, but is focused on launch using a launch vehicle of the same family that launched ships of the 7K-OK and 7K-T types.

The project, which included several highlights, never saw space, and was closed in 1968. The main reason is usually considered the desire of the TsKBEM management to monopolize the subject of manned flights in the head design bureau. It proposed instead of one 7K-VI ship to design the Soyuz-VI orbital research station (OIS) from two components - the orbital unit (OB-VI), the development of which was entrusted to the branch in Kuibyshev, and the manned transport vehicle (7K-S), which was designed on its own in Podlipki.

Many decisions and developments made both in the branch and in the head design bureau were involved, however, the customer, the USSR Ministry of Defense, recognized the already mentioned complex based on the Almaz OPS as a more promising means of reconnaissance.

Despite the closure of the Soyuz-VI project and the transfer of significant TsKBEM forces to the Salyut DOS program, work on the 7K-S ship continued: the military was ready to use it for autonomous experimental flights with a crew of two, and the developers saw in project the possibility of creating on the basis of 7K-S modifications of the ship for various purposes.

Interestingly, the design was carried out by a team of specialists not related to the creation of 7K-OK and 7K-T. At first, the developers tried, while maintaining the overall layout, to improve such characteristics of the ship as autonomy and the ability to maneuver over a wide range, by changing the power structure and the locations of individual modified systems. However, as the project progressed, it became clear that a fundamental improvement in functionality is possible only by making fundamental changes.

Ultimately, the project had fundamental differences from the base model. 80% of the 7K-S on-board systems were developed anew or significantly modernized; modern element base was used in the equipment. In particular, the new Chaika-3 motion control system was built on the basis of an on-board digital computer complex based on the Argon-16 computer and a strapdown inertial navigation system. The fundamental difference of the system was the transition from direct motion control based on measurement data to control based on a corrected ship motion model implemented in the onboard computer. The navigation system's sensors measured angular velocities and linear accelerations in a linked coordinate system, which, in turn, were simulated in a computer. "Chaika-3" calculated the movement parameters and automatically controlled the ship in optimal modes with the lowest fuel consumption, carried out self-control with the transition - if necessary - to backup programs and means, giving the crew information on the display.

The cosmonauts' console installed in the descent vehicle became fundamentally new: the main means of displaying information had matrix-type command and signal consoles and a combined electronic indicator based on a kinescope. Fundamentally new were the devices for exchanging information with the on-board computer. And even though the first domestic electronic display had (as some experts joked) a “chicken intelligence interface”, this was already a significant step towards cutting the information “umbilical cord” connecting the ship with the Earth.

A new propulsion system was developed with a single fuel system for the main engine and mooring and orientation micromotors. It became more reliable and contained more fuel than before. The solar panels removed after the Soyuz-11 for lightening were returned to the ship, the emergency rescue system, parachutes and soft landing engines were improved. At the same time, the ship outwardly remained very similar to the 7K-T prototype.

In 1974, when the USSR Ministry of Defense decided to abandon autonomous military research missions, the project was reoriented to transport flights to orbital stations, and the crew was increased to three people, dressed in updated emergency rescue suits.

⇡ Another ship and its development

The ship received the designation 7K-ST. Due to the totality of numerous changes, they even planned to give it a new name - "Vityaz", but in the end they designated it as "Soyuz T". The first unmanned flight of the new device (still in the 7K-S version) was made on August 6, 1974, and the first manned Soyuz T-2 (7K-ST) launched only on June 5, 1980. Such a long journey to regular missions was due not only to the complexity of new solutions, but also to a certain opposition from the “old” development team, who continued to refine and operate the 7K-T in parallel - from April 1971 to May 1981, the “old” ship flew 31 times under the designation "Soyuz" and 9 times as a satellite "Cosmos". For comparison: from April 1978 to March 1986, 7K-S and 7K-ST made 3 unmanned and 15 manned flights.

Nevertheless, having won a place in the sun, the Soyuz T eventually became the “workhorse” of the domestic manned cosmonautics - it was on its basis that the design of the next model (7K-STM), intended for transport flights to high-latitude orbital stations, began. It was assumed that the third-generation DOS would operate in orbit with an inclination of 65 ° so that their flight path would capture most of the country's territory: when launched into orbit with an inclination of 51 °, everything that remains north of the path is inaccessible to instruments intended for observation from orbits.

Since the Soyuz-U launch vehicle, when launching vehicles to high-latitude stations, lacked approximately 350 kg of payload mass, it could not put the ship in the standard configuration into the desired orbit. It was necessary to compensate for the loss of carrying capacity, as well as to create a modification of the ship with increased autonomy and even greater maneuvering capabilities.

The problem with the rocket was solved by transferring the engines of the second stage of the carrier (received the designation "Soyuz-U2") to the new high-energy synthetic hydrocarbon fuel "syntin" ("cycline").

The "cycline" version of the Soyuz-U2 launch vehicle flew from December 1982 to July 1993. Photo by Roscosmos

And the ship was redesigned, equipped with an improved propulsion system of increased reliability with an increased fuel supply, as well as new systems - in particular, the old rendezvous system ("Needle") was replaced with a new one ("Kurs"), which allows docking without reorienting the station. Now all targeting modes, including the Earth and the Sun, could be performed either automatically or with the participation of the crew, and the approach was carried out on the basis of calculations of the relative motion trajectory and optimal maneuvers - they were performed using the on-board computer using information from the Kurs system . For duplication, a teleoperator control mode (TORU) was introduced, which allowed, in the event of a failure of the Kurs, the astronaut from the station to take control and manually dock the spacecraft.

The ship could be controlled by a command radio link or by a crew using new on-board input and display devices. The updated communication system made it possible, during an autonomous flight, to contact the Earth through the station to which the ship was flying, which significantly expanded the radio visibility zone. The propulsion system of the emergency rescue system and parachutes were redesigned again (lightweight nylon was used for domes, and a domestic analogue of Kevlar was used for lines).

The draft design for the ship of the next model - 7K-STM - was released in April 1981, and flight tests began with the unmanned launch of the Soyuz TM on May 21, 1986. Alas, the station of the third generation turned out to be only one - "Mir", and it flew along the "old" orbit with an inclination of 51 °. But manned spacecraft flights, which began in February 1987, ensured not only the successful operation of this complex, but also the initial stage of the ISS operation.

When designing the above-mentioned orbital complex, in order to significantly reduce the duration of "blind" orbits, an attempt was made to create a satellite communication, monitoring and control system based on Altair geostationary relay satellites, ground-based relay points and corresponding on-board radio equipment. Such a system was successfully used in flight control during the operation of the Mir station, but at that time they still could not equip Soyuz-type ships with such equipment.

Since 1996, due to the high cost and lack of raw material deposits on Russian territory, it was necessary to abandon the use of "sintin": starting with the Soyuz TM-24, all manned spacecraft returned to the Soyuz-U carrier. The problem of insufficient energy arose again, which was supposed to be solved by lightening the ship and modernizing the rocket.

From May 1986 to April 2002, 33 manned and 1 unmanned vehicles of the 7K-STM series were launched - all of them went under the designation Soyuz TM.

The next modification of the ship was created for operation in international missions. Its design coincided with the development of the ISS, more precisely with the mutual integration of the American Freedom project and the Russian Mir-2. Since the construction was supposed to be carried out by American shuttles, which could not remain in orbit for a long time, a rescue apparatus was constantly on duty as part of the station, capable of safely returning the crew to Earth in the event of an emergency.

The United States worked on the "space taxi" CRV (Crew Return Vehicle) based on the apparatus with the supporting body X-38, and the Rocket and Space Corporation (RKK) "Energy" (as the company eventually became known as the successor of the "royal" OKB-1 ) proposed a capsule-type ship based on a massively enlarged Soyuz descent vehicle. Both devices were supposed to be delivered to the ISS in the cargo compartment of the shuttle, which, in addition, was considered as the main means of crew flight from Earth to the station and back.

On November 20, 1998, the first element of the ISS was launched into space - the Zarya functional cargo block, created in Russia with American money. Construction has begun. At this stage, the parties carried out the delivery of crews on a parity basis - by shuttles and Soyuz-TM. The great technical difficulties that stood in the way of the CRV project, and a significant overrun of the budget, forced the development of the American rescue ship to be stopped. A special Russian rescue ship was also not created, but work in this direction received an unexpected (or natural?) continuation.

On February 1, 2003, the Columbia shuttle was lost while returning from orbit. There was no real threat of closing the ISS project, but the situation turned out to be critical. The parties coped with the situation by reducing the crew of the complex from three to two people and accepting the Russian proposal for permanent duty at the station of the Russian Soyuz TM. Then the modified Soyuz TMA transport manned spacecraft, created on the basis of 7K-STM within the framework of the previously reached interstate agreement between Russia and the United States, as an integral part of the orbital station complex, pulled up. Its main purpose was to ensure the rescue of the main crew of the station and the delivery of visiting expeditions.

According to the results of earlier flights of international crews on the Soyuz TM, the design of the new ship took into account specific anthropometric requirements (hence the letter “A” in the model designation): among American astronauts there are persons who are quite different from Russian cosmonauts in height and weight, moreover, both up and down (see table). It must be said that this difference affected not only the comfort of placement in the descent vehicle, but also the alignment, which was important for a safe landing when returning from orbit and required a modification of the descent control system.

Anthropometric parameters of the crew members of the Soyuz TM and Soyuz TMA spacecraft

The Soyuz TMA descent vehicle was equipped with three newly developed elongated seats with new four-mode shock absorbers, which are adjustable according to the cosmonaut's weight. The equipment in the areas adjacent to the seats was reconfigured. Inside the body of the descent vehicle, in the area of ​​the steps of the right and left seats, stampings about 30 mm deep were made, which made it possible to place tall astronauts in elongated chairs. The power set of the hull and the laying of pipelines and cables have changed, the zone of passage through the entrance manhole has expanded. A new control panel, reduced in height, a new refrigeration and drying unit, an information storage unit and other new or improved systems were installed. The cockpit, if possible, was cleared of protruding elements, moving them to more convenient places.

Controls and indication systems installed in the Soyuz TMA descent vehicle: 1 - commander and flight engineer-1 have integrated control panels (InPU) in front of them; 2 - numeric keypad for entering codes (for navigation on the InPU display); 3 — marker control unit (for navigation on the InPU display); 4 - block of electroluminescent indication of the current state of systems; 5 - manual rotary valves RPV-1 and RPV-2, responsible for filling the breathing lines with oxygen; 6 — electropneumatic valve for supplying oxygen during landing; 7 - the ship's commander observes the docking through the periscope "Vizir special cosmonaut (VSK)"; 8 - with the help of the motion control stick (THROT), the ship is given linear (positive or negative) acceleration; 9 - with the help of the orientation control knob (ORC), the ship is given rotation; 10 - fan of the refrigeration-drying unit (XSA), which removes heat and excess moisture from the ship; 11 - toggle switches for turning on the ventilation of spacesuits during landing; 12 - voltmeter; 13 - fuse box; 14 - button to start conservation of the ship after docking with the orbital station

Once again, the complex of landing aids was finalized - it became more reliable and made it possible to reduce the overloads that occur after descent on a reserve parachute system.

The problem of rescuing a fully staffed ISS crew of six was ultimately solved by the simultaneous presence of two Soyuz at the station, which since 2011, after the retirement of the shuttles, have become the only manned spacecraft in the world.

To confirm the reliability, a significant (at present) amount of experimental testing and mock-up with a control fitting of crews, including NASA astronauts, was carried out. Unlike the ships of the previous series, there were no unmanned launches: the first launch of the Soyuz TMA-1 took place on October 30, 2002 immediately with the crew. In total, until November 2011, 22 ships of this series were launched.

⇡ Digital Soyuz

Since the beginning of the new millennium, the main efforts of RSC Energia specialists have been aimed at improving the ship's on-board systems by replacing analog equipment with digital equipment made on a modern component base. The prerequisites for this were the obsolescence of equipment and manufacturing technology, as well as the cessation of the production of a number of components.

Since 2005, the enterprise has been working on the modernization of the Soyuz TMA in order to ensure that modern requirements for the reliability of manned spacecraft and crew safety are met. The main changes were made to the systems of motion control, navigation and on-board measurements - the replacement of this equipment with modern devices based on computing tools with advanced software made it possible to improve the operational characteristics of the ship, solve the problem of ensuring guaranteed supplies of key service systems, and reduce the mass and volume occupied.

In total, in the traffic control and navigation system of the ship of the new modification, instead of six old devices with a total weight of 101 kg, five new ones weighing about 42 kg were installed. Power consumption was reduced from 402 to 105 W, while the performance and reliability of the central computer increased. In the on-board measurement system, 30 old instruments with a total weight of about 70 kg were replaced by 14 new ones with a total weight of about 28 kg with the same information content.

In order to organize the control, power supply and temperature control of the new equipment, the control systems of the onboard complex and the thermal regime were accordingly finalized by performing additional improvements in the design of the spacecraft (the manufacturability of its manufacture was improved), as well as finalizing the communication interfaces with the ISS. As a result, it was possible to lighten the ship by about 70 kg, which made it possible to increase the ability to deliver payloads, as well as to further improve the reliability of the Soyuz.

One of the stages of modernization was worked out on the "truck" "Progress M-01M" in 2008. On an unmanned vehicle, which is in many ways analogous to a manned spacecraft, the obsolete airborne Argon-16 was replaced by a modern digital computer TsVM101 with triple redundancy, with a capacity of 8 million operations per second and a service life of 35 thousand hours, which was developed by the Submikron Research Institute ( Zelenograd, Moscow). The new computer uses the 3081 RISC processor (since 2011, the TsVM101 has been equipped with the domestic 1890BM1T processor). Also on board was installed new digital telemetry, a new guidance system and experimental software.

The first launch of the Soyuz TMA-01M manned spacecraft took place on October 8, 2010. In his cockpit there was a modernized Neptune console, made using modern computing tools and information display devices, featuring new interfaces and software. All spacecraft computers (TsVM101, KS020-M, console computers) are united in a common computer network - an onboard digital computer system that is integrated into the computer system of the Russian segment of the ISS after docking the spacecraft with the station. As a result, all Soyuz onboard information can get into the station's control system for control, and vice versa. This possibility allows you to quickly change the navigation data in the spacecraft control system in case it is necessary to perform a regular or emergency descent from orbit.

European astronauts Andreas Mogensen and Toma Peske practice the control of the Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft on the simulator. Screenshot from ESA video

The first digital Soyuz had not yet set off on its manned flight, and in 2009 RSC Energia approached Roscosmos with a proposal to consider the possibility of further modernization of Progress M-M and Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft. The need for this is due to the fact that obsolete Kvant and Kama stations were decommissioned in the ground-based automated control complex. The former provide the main flight control loop for spacecraft from the Earth through the Kvant-V on-board radio-technical complex manufactured in Ukraine, while the latter provide measurements of the spacecraft's orbital parameters.

Modern "Unions" are controlled by three circuits. The first is automatic: the onboard system solves the control problem without outside intervention. The second circuit is provided by the Earth with the involvement of radio equipment. Finally, the third is manual crew control. Previous upgrades have provided updates to the automatic and manual circuits. The most recent stage affected radio equipment.

The onboard command system "Kvant-V" is being changed to a single command and telemetry system equipped with an additional telemetry channel. The latter will sharply increase the independence of spacecraft from ground control points: the command radio link will ensure operation through the Luch-5 relay satellites, expanding the radio visibility zone to 70% of the orbit duration. A new radio-technical rendezvous system "Kurs-NA" will appear on board, which has already passed flight tests on "Progress M-M". Compared to the former Kurs-A, it is lighter, more compact (including due to the exclusion of one of the three complex radio antennas) and more energy efficient. "Kurs-NA" is produced in Russia and is made on a new element base.

The ASN-KS satellite navigation equipment was introduced into the system, capable of working with both domestic GLONASS and American GPS, which will ensure high accuracy in determining the speeds and coordinates of the ship in orbit without involving ground-based measuring systems.

The transmitter of the Klest-M on-board television system was previously analog, now it has been replaced by digital, with video encoding in MPEG-2 format. As a result, the influence of industrial noise on the image quality has decreased.

The on-board measurement system uses a modernized information recording unit, made on a modern domestic element base. The power supply system has been significantly changed: the area of ​​photovoltaic converters of solar batteries has increased by more than one square meter, and their efficiency has increased from 12 to 14%, an additional buffer battery has been installed. As a result, the power of the system has increased and provides a guaranteed power supply to the equipment during the docking of the spacecraft with the ISS, even if one of the solar panels is not opened.

The placement of the berthing and orientation engines of the combined propulsion system has been changed: now the flight program can be executed if any one engine fails, and crew safety will be ensured even with two failures in the berthing and attitude engines subsystem.

Once again, the accuracy of the radioisotope altimeter, which includes soft landing engines, has been improved. Refinements of the system for ensuring the thermal regime made it possible to exclude abnormal functioning of the coolant flow.

The communication and direction finding system has been upgraded, which allows using the GLONASS / GPS receiver to determine the coordinates of the landing site of the descent vehicle and transmit them to the search and rescue team, as well as to the Moscow Region Mission Control Center via the KOSPAS-SARSAT satellite system.

To the least extent, the changes affected the design of the ship: additional protection against micrometeorites and space debris was installed on the housing of the utility compartment.

The development of the upgraded systems has traditionally been carried out on a cargo ship - this time on the Progress MS, which launched to the ISS on December 21, 2015. During the mission, for the first time during the operation of the Soyuz and Progress, a communication session was carried out through the Luch-5B relay satellite. The regular flight of the "truck" opened the way to the mission of the manned Soyuz MS. By the way, the launch of the Soyuz TM-20AM on March 16, 2016 completed this series: the last set of the Kurs-A system was installed on the ship.

A video by the Roskosmos television studio describing the modernization of the systems of the Soyuz MS spacecraft.

⇡ Flight preparation and launch

Design documentation for the installation of Soyuz MS instruments and equipment has been issued by RSC Energia since 2013. At the same time, the manufacture of body parts began. The ship manufacturing cycle in the corporation is approximately two years, so the start of flight operation of the new Soyuz was in 2016.

After the first ship entered the factory control and testing station, for some time its launch was planned for March 2016, but in December 2015 it was postponed to June 21. At the end of April, the launch was pushed back by three days. The media reported that one of the reasons for the postponement was the desire to shorten the interval between the landing of the Soyuz TMA-19M and the launch of the Soyuz MS-01 "in order to make the work of the ISS crew more efficient." Accordingly, the Soyuz TMA-19M landing date was moved from June 5 to June 18.

On January 13, the preparation of the Soyuz-FG rocket began at Baikonur: the carrier blocks passed the necessary checks, and the specialists began to assemble the “package” (a bundle of four side blocks of the first and the central block of the second stages), to which the third stage was attached.

On May 14, the ship arrived at the cosmodrome, and preparations for launch began. Already on May 17, a message was passed on checking the automatic control system for orientation and berthing engines. At the end of May, Soyuz MS-01 was tested for leaks. At the same time, the propulsion system of the emergency rescue system was delivered to Baikonur.

From May 20 to May 25, the ship was tested for tightness in a vacuum chamber, after which it was transported to the assembly and test building (MIK) of site 254 for further checks and tests. In the process of preparation, malfunctions were discovered in the control system, which could lead to the spinning of the ship during docking with the ISS. The originally put forward version of a software failure was not confirmed during tests on the test bench of the control system equipment. “Specialists updated the software, tested it on a ground simulator, but after that the situation has not changed,” said an anonymous source in the industry.

On June 1, experts recommended postponing the launch of Soyuz MS. On June 6, a meeting of the State Commission of Roscosmos, chaired by the First Deputy Head of the State Corporation Alexander Ivanov, took place, which decided to postpone the launch to July 7. Accordingly, the launch of the cargo "Progress MS-03" has shifted (from July 7 to July 19).

The backup circuit control unit was removed from the Soyuz MS-01 and sent to Moscow for software flashing.

In parallel with the equipment, the crews were also preparing - the main and backup. In mid-May, Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, as well as their counterparts, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and ESA astronaut Toma Peske, successfully passed tests on a specialized simulator based on the TsF-7 centrifuge: the possibility of manually controlling the spacecraft’s descent was tested. simulation of overloads that occur during atmospheric entry. The cosmonauts and astronauts successfully coped with the task, "landing" as close as possible to the calculated landing point with minimal overloads. Then the planned trainings continued on the Soyuz MS simulators and the ISS Russian Segment, as well as classes on conducting scientific and medical experiments, physical and medical preparation for the effects of space flight factors and exams.

On May 31, in Star City, the final decision was made on the main and backup crews: Anatoly Ivanishin - commander, Kathleen Rubens - flight engineer No. 1 and Takuya Onishi - flight engineer No. 2. The backup crew included Oleg Novitsky - commander, Peggy Whitson - flight engineer No. 1 and Tom Peske - flight engineer No. 2.

On June 24, the main and backup crews arrived at the cosmodrome, the very next day they examined the Soyuz MS at the MIK of site 254, and then began training at the Test Training Complex.

The emblem of the mission, created by the Spanish designer Jorge Cartes (Jorge Cartes), is interesting: it depicts the Soyuz MS-01 approaching the ISS, as well as the name of the ship and the names of the crew members in the languages ​​of their native countries. The ship's number - "01" - is in large print, and a tiny Mars is depicted inside the zero, as a hint of the global goal of manned space exploration for the coming decades.

On July 4, the rocket with the docked spacecraft was taken out of the MIK and installed on the first platform (Gagarin Start) of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. At a speed of 3-4 km / h, the export procedure takes about one and a half. The security service prevented the attempts of the guests who were present at the export to flatten coins “for good luck” under the wheels of a diesel locomotive pulling a platform with a launch vehicle laid on the installer.

On July 6, the State Commission finally approved the previously planned prime crew of Expedition 48-49 to the ISS.

On July 7, at 01:30 Moscow time, the preparation of the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle for launch began. At 02:15 Moscow time, the cosmonauts, dressed in spacesuits, took their seats in the cockpit of the Soyuz MS-01.

At 03:59, a 30-minute readiness for launch was announced, the transfer of service columns to a horizontal position began. At 04:03 Moscow time, the emergency rescue system was cocked. At 04:08 there was a report on the completion of pre-launch operations in full and the evacuation of the launch crew to a safe area.

15 minutes before the start, to cheer up, Irkutam began broadcasting light music and songs in Japanese and English.

At 04:36:40 the rocket launched! After 120 seconds, the propulsion system of the emergency rescue system was reset and the side blocks of the first stage moved away. At 295 seconds of flight, the second stage departed. At 530 seconds, the third stage completed its work and the Soyuz MS was launched into orbit. A new modification of the veteran ship rushed into space. Expedition 48-49 to the ISS has begun.

⇡ Prospects for the Soyuz

This year, two more ships should be launched (Soyuz MS-02 flies on September 23 and Soyuz MS-03 on November 6) and two "trucks", which, according to the control system, are largely unmanned analogues of manned vehicles (July 17 - "Progress MS-03" and October 23 - "Progress MS-04"). Next year, three Soyuz MS and three MS Progress are expected to be launched. The plans for 2018 look about the same.

On March 30, 2016, during a press conference of the head of the State Corporation Roscosmos I. V. Komarov, dedicated to the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 (FKP-2025), a slide was shown showing proposals for launching to the ISS during the specified period in a total of 16 IS Unions and 27 IS Progresses. Taking into account the already published Russian plans with a specific indication of the launch date until 2019, the plate is generally consistent with reality: in 2018-2019, NASA hopes to start flights of commercial manned spacecraft that will deliver American astronauts to the ISS, which will eliminate the need for such a significant number of Soyuz launches, as now.

Energia Corporation, under a contract with the United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC), will equip the Soyuz MS manned spacecraft with individual equipment for sending six astronauts to the ISS and returning to earth under a contract with NASA, the expiration date of which is December 2019.

The launches of the ships will be carried out by Soyuz-FG and Soyuz-2.1A launch vehicles (from 2021). On June 23, the RIA Novosti agency reported that the Roscosmos State Corporation announced two open tenders for the manufacture and supply of three Soyuz-2.1A rockets for launching Progress MS cargo ships (shipment deadline - November 25, 2017, initial price contract - more than 3.3 billion rubles) and two "Soyuz-FG" for manned spacecraft "Soyuz MS" (shipment deadline - until November 25, 2018, the maximum price for manufacturing and delivery - more than 1.6 billion rubles).

Thus, starting from the just completed launch, Soyuz MS becomes the only Russian means of delivery to the ISS and return of cosmonauts to Earth.

Ship variants for near-Earth orbital flights

If you trace the entire fifty-year evolution of the Soyuz, you can see that all the changes that were not associated with a change in the “type of activity” mainly concerned the on-board systems of the ship and had relatively little effect on its appearance and internal layout. But attempts at "revolutions" were made, and more than once, but invariably stumbled upon the fact that such design modifications (associated, for example, with an increase in the size of the household compartment or descent vehicle) led to a sharp increase in related problems: a change in masses, moments of inertia and centering, as well as the aerodynamic characteristics of the ship compartments, entailed the need to conduct a complex of expensive tests and break the entire technological process, which since the late 1960s has involved several dozens (if not hundreds) of allied enterprises of the first level of cooperation (suppliers of instruments, systems , launch vehicles), causing an avalanche of costs in time and money, which may not have been paid off at all by the benefits received. And even changes that did not affect the layout and appearance of the Soyuz were made to the design only when a real problem arose that the existing version of the ship could not solve.

Soyuz MS will be the pinnacle of evolution and the last major modernization of the veteran ship. In the future, it will be subject to only minor modifications related to the decommissioning of individual devices, updating the element base and launch vehicles. For example, it is planned to replace a number of electronic units in the emergency rescue system, as well as adapt the Soyuz MS to the Soyuz-2.1A launch vehicle.

According to a number of experts, Soyuz-type ships are suitable for performing a number of tasks outside the Earth orbit. For example, a few years ago, Space Adventures (carried out the marketing of visiting the ISS by space tourists) together with RSC Energia offered tourist flights along the lunar trajectory. The scheme provided for two launches of launch vehicles. Proton-M was the first to launch with an upper stage equipped with an additional habitation module and a docking station. The second is Soyuz-FG with a "lunar" modification of the Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft with a crew on board. Both assemblies docked in near-Earth orbit, and then the upper stage sent the complex to the target. The ship's fuel supply was sufficient to make trajectory corrections. According to the plans, the journey took a total of about a week, giving tourists two or three days after the start the opportunity to enjoy the views of the Moon from a distance of a couple of hundred kilometers.

The finalization of the ship itself consisted primarily in strengthening the thermal protection of the descent vehicle to ensure safe entry into the atmosphere at the second cosmic velocity, as well as the refinement of life support systems for a week-long flight. The crew was supposed to consist of three people - a professional astronaut and two tourists. The cost of the "ticket" was estimated at $ 150 million. No one has yet been found ...

Meanwhile, as we remember, the “lunar roots” of the Soyuz indicate the absence of technical obstacles to the implementation of such an expedition on a modified ship. The question rests only on money. Perhaps the mission can be simplified by sending the Soyuz to the Moon using the Angara-A5 launch vehicle, launched, for example, from the Vostochny cosmodrome.

However, at present it seems unlikely that the "lunar" Soyuz will ever appear: the effective demand for such trips is too small and the costs of refining the ship for extremely rare missions are too high. Moreover, the Soyuz should be replaced by the Federation, a new generation manned transport ship (PTK NP), which is being developed at RSC Energia. The new ship accommodates a larger crew - four people (and up to six in case of emergency rescue from the orbital station) versus three for the Soyuz. The resource of systems and energy capabilities allow it (not in principle, but in the realities of life) to solve much more complex tasks, including flying into the circumlunar space. The design of the PTK NP is “sharpened” for flexible use: a ship for flights beyond low Earth orbit, a vehicle for supplying a space station, a lifeguard, a tourist apparatus or a system for returning cargo.

It should be noted that the latest modernization of Soyuz MS and Progress MS allows even now to use the ships as "flying test benches" for testing solutions and systems when creating the "Federation". So it is: the improvements made are among the measures aimed at creating the PTK NP. Flight certification of new instruments and equipment installed on the Soyuz TMA-M will make it possible to make appropriate decisions in relation to the Federation.

It became the first spacecraft of the Vostok program aimed at manned flights. Prior to manned flight, the program launched several automatic vehicles between May 1960 and March 1961. The first launch took place on May 15, 1960, this ship was not even returnable. It was successfully launched, but on the 64th orbit there was a malfunction in the control system and the ship moved into a high orbit. This was followed by two unsuccessful, one partially unsuccessful and one successful launches. The last two launches showed the full performance of both the ship and the launch vehicle, which opened the way to space for man. The device took off on April 12, 1961 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, on board was the world's first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The first manned flight into space was also the shortest. Gagarin made only one revolution around the Earth in 108 minutes. The pericenter of the orbit was at an altitude of only 169 kilometers, the apocenter - 327 kilometers. The landing took place not in a descent capsule, but on a parachute fired at an altitude of 7 kilometers. At the same time, unlike more modern devices of the Vostok program, the device did not have a spare engine to correct the descent in the atmosphere. Instead, Gagarin had a supply of food for 10 days in case of a fall in an unplanned place.

It is also worth noting that during the first flight there were no ships providing space communications, so it was carried out only from the territory of the USSR. However, Gagarin's regular staff did not have the ability to control the flight. Everything had to happen automatically or by commands from ground control centers - if they were in the communication zone. This decision was made because of the unknown effect of weightlessness conditions on humans. To enable manual control in case of an emergency, a code had to be entered.

On April 11, the Vostok-K launch vehicle with a fortified apparatus was transported in a horizontal state to the launch pad, where it was examined by Korolev for malfunctions. After his approval, the rocket was brought to a vertical position. At 10 am, Gagarin and Titov, the reserve cosmonaut, received the final flight plan, which was scheduled to begin at 9:07 am the next day. The choice of the launch time was determined by the conditions of the descent. During the start of the descent maneuver, the vehicle had to fly over Africa with the best orientation of its solar sensors. High accuracy during the maneuver was necessary to hit the planned landing point.

Pick up on the day of the flight was scheduled for 5:30 am. After breakfast, they put on spacesuits and arrived at the launch site. At 7:10, Gagarin was already in the spacecraft and communicated with the control center by radio for two hours before launch, while his image from the onboard camera was available in the center. The hatch of the ship was battened down 40 minutes after Gagarin boarded the ship, but a leak was discovered, so it had to be opened and battened down again.

The launch took place at 09:07. 119 seconds after launch, the booster's external auxiliary engines used up all their fuel and were separated. After 156 seconds, the containment shell was dropped, after 300 - the main stage of the launch vehicle, however, the booster continued to launch. Three minutes after the start of the flight, the device had already begun to leave the communication zone with Baikonur. Only 25 minutes after the start of the flight, it was found that the device entered the calculated orbit. In fact, Vostok-1 went into orbit 676 seconds after launch, ten seconds before that, the upper stage engines worked out.

At 09:31 Vostok left the communication zone with the station in Khabarovsk in the very high frequency range and switched to the high frequency mode. At 09:51, the orientation detection system was activated, which is necessary for the correct issuance of an impulse to the descent. The main system was based on solar sensors. In the event of its failure, it was possible to switch to manual control mode and use approximate visual guidance. Each of the systems had its own set of propulsion nozzles and 10 kilograms of fuel. At 09:53 Gagarin learns from the station in Khabarovsk that he has entered the calculated orbit. At 10:00 a.m., as Vostok was flying over the Strait of Magellan, the news of the flight was broadcast over the radio.

At 10:25 the ship was automatically brought into the orientation required for descent. The start of the engines occurred at a distance of about 8,000 kilometers from the desired landing point. The impulse lasted 42 seconds. Ten seconds after the completion of the maneuver, the service module was supposed to separate from the descent module, but it turned out to be connected to the descent module by a network of wires. However, due to vibrations during the passage of dense layers of the atmosphere, the service module separated over Egypt and the device was brought into the correct orientation.

At 09:55, at an altitude of 7 kilometers, the hatch of the apparatus opened and Gagarin ejected. The apparatus itself also descended on a parachute that opened 2.5 kilometers from the Earth. Gagarin's parachute opened almost immediately after the ejection. Upon landing, Gagarin missed by only 280 kilometers.

These were the simplest (as far as a spacecraft can be simple) devices that had a glorious history: the first manned flight into space, the first daily space flight, the first sleep of an astronaut in orbit (German Titov managed to oversleep a communication session), the first a group flight of two spacecraft, the first woman in space, and even such an achievement as the first use of a space toilet, carried out by Valery Bykovsky on the Vostok-5 spacecraft.

Boris Evseevich Chertok wrote well about the latter in his memoirs "Rockets and People":
“On June 18, in the morning, the attention of the State Commission and all the “fans” who had gathered at our checkpoint switched from Chaika to Hawk. Khabarovsk received Bykovsky’s message on the HF channel: “At 9:05 there was a cosmic knock.” Korolev and Tyulin immediately began development of a list of questions that should be asked to Bykovsky when he appears in our communication zone in order to understand how great the danger threatening the ship is.
Someone has already been given the task to calculate the size of the meteorite, which is sufficient for the astronaut to hear the “knock”. They also racked their brains over what could happen in the event of a collision, but without loss of tightness. Bykovsky was interrogated by Kamanin.
At the beginning of the communication session, in response to a question about the nature and area of ​​the knock, "Hawk" replied that he did not understand what was being said. After being reminded of the radiogram transmitted at 9.05 am and Zorya repeating its text, Bykovsky answered through laughter: “There was not a knock, but a chair. There was a chair, you understand? Everyone who listened to the answer burst out laughing. The cosmonaut was wished further success and was told that he would be returned to Earth, despite his brave act, at the beginning of the sixth day.
The "space chair" incident has entered the oral history of astronautics as a classic example of the misuse of medical terminology in the space communications channel.

Because Vostok 1 and Vostok 2 flew alone, and Vostok 3 and 4 and Vostok 5 and 6, which flew in pairs, were far apart, no photographs of this ship in orbit exist. You can only watch films from Gagarin's flight in this video from the Roscosmos television studio:

And we will study the device of the ship on museum exhibits. The Kaluga Museum of Cosmonautics has a life-size model of the Vostok spacecraft:

Here we see a spherical descent vehicle with a cunningly designed porthole (we'll talk about it separately) and radio antennas, attached to the instrument-aggregate compartment with four steel bands. The fastening tapes are connected at the top with a lock that separates them to separate the SA from the PAO before entering the atmosphere. On the left you can see a pack of cables from PAO, attached to a CA of solid size with a connector. The second porthole is located on the reverse side of the SA.

There are 14 balloons on the PJSC (I already wrote about why in astronautics they like to make balloons in the form of balloons so much) with oxygen for the life support system and nitrogen for the orientation system. Below, on the surface of the PAO, tubes from balloons, electrovalves and orientation system nozzles are visible. This system is made according to the simplest technology: nitrogen is supplied through electrovalves in the required quantities to the nozzles, from where it escapes into space, creating a reactive impulse that turns the ship in the right direction. The disadvantages of the system are the extremely low specific impulse and the short total operating time. The developers did not assume that the astronaut would turn the ship back and forth, but would get by with the view through the window that the automation would provide him.

The solar sensor and the infrared vertical sensor are located on the same side surface. These words only look terribly abstruse, in fact, everything is quite simple. To decelerate the ship and deorbit it must be deployed "tail first". To do this, you need to set the position of the ship along two axes: pitch and yaw. Rolling is not so necessary, but it was done along the way. At first, the orientation system gave out an impulse to rotate the ship in pitch and roll and stopped this rotation as soon as the infrared sensor caught the maximum thermal radiation from the Earth's surface. This is called "setting the infrared vertical". Due to this, the engine nozzle became directed horizontally. Now you need to direct it straight ahead. The ship turned around in a yaw until the solar sensor recorded the maximum illumination. Such an operation was carried out at a strictly programmed moment, when the position of the Sun was exactly such that, with the solar sensor directed at it, the engine nozzle turned out to be directed strictly forward, in the direction of travel. After that, also under the control of a time-programming device, a brake propulsion system was launched, which reduced the speed of the ship by 100 m/s, which was enough to deorbit.

Below, on the conical part of the PJSC, another set of radio communication antennas and shutters are installed, under which the radiators of the thermal control system are hidden. By opening and closing a different number of shutters, an astronaut can set a comfortable temperature for him in the spacecraft cabin. Below all is the nozzle of the brake propulsion system.

Inside the PJSC are the remaining elements of the TDU, tanks with fuel and oxidizer for it, a battery of silver-zinc galvanic cells, a thermoregulation system (a pump, a supply of coolant and tubes to radiators) and a telemetry system (a bunch of various sensors that monitored the status of all ship systems).

Due to the restrictions on dimensions and weight dictated by the design of the launch vehicle, the backup TDU simply would not fit there, therefore, for the Vostoks, a somewhat unusual emergency deorbit method was used in case of TDU failure: the ship was put into such a low orbit, in which it it will burrow into the atmosphere itself after a week of flight, and the life support system is designed for 10 days, so the astronaut would have survived, even though the landing would have happened where the hell.

Now let's move on to the device of the descent vehicle, which was the cabin of the ship. Another exhibit of the Kaluga Museum of Cosmonautics will help us with this, namely the original SA of the Vostok-5 spacecraft, on which Valery Bykovsky flew from June 14 to June 19, 1963.

The mass of the apparatus is 2.3 tons, and almost half of it is the mass of the heat-protective ablative coating. That is why the Vostok descent vehicle was made in the form of a ball (the smallest surface area of ​​all geometric bodies) and that is why all the systems that were not needed during landing were brought into an unpressurized instrument-aggregate compartment. This made it possible to make the SA as small as possible: its outer diameter was 2.4 m, and the astronaut had only 1.6 cubic meters of volume at his disposal.

The cosmonaut in the SK-1 space suit (space suit of the first model) was seated on an ejection seat, which had a dual purpose.

It was an emergency rescue system in the event of a launch vehicle failure at launch or during the launch phase, and it was also a regular landing system. After braking in the dense layers of the atmosphere at an altitude of 7 km, the cosmonaut ejected and descended on a parachute separately from the spacecraft. He, of course, could have landed in the apparatus, but a strong blow when touching the earth's surface could lead to injury to the astronaut, although it was not fatal.

I managed to photograph the interior of the descent vehicle in more detail on a model of it in the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics.

To the left of the chair is the control panel for the ship's systems. It made it possible to regulate the air temperature in the ship, control the gas composition of the atmosphere, record the astronaut's conversations with the earth and everything else that the astronaut said on a tape recorder, open and close the porthole shutters, adjust the brightness of the interior lighting, turn the radio station on and off, and turn on the manual orientation system. in case of automatic failure. The toggle switches for the manual orientation system are located at the end of the console under a protective cap. On Vostok-1, they were blocked by a combination lock (its keypad is visible a little higher), as doctors were afraid that a person would go crazy in zero gravity, and entering the code was considered a sanity test.

Directly in front of the chair is a dashboard. This is just a bunch of display meters, by which the astronaut could determine the flight time, the air pressure in the cabin, the gas composition of the air, the pressure in the tanks of the attitude control system and his geographical position. The latter was shown by a globe with a clockwork, turning in the course of flight.

Below the dashboard is a porthole with a Gaze tool for the manual orientation system.

It is very easy to use it. We deploy the ship in roll and pitch until we see the earth's horizon in the annular zone along the edge of the porthole. There, just mirrors stand around the porthole, and the entire horizon is visible in them only when the apparatus is turned straight down through this porthole. Thus, the infrared vertical is manually set. Next, we turn the ship along the yaw until the run of the earth's surface in the porthole coincides with the direction of the arrows drawn on it. That's it, the orientation is set, and the moment the TDU is turned on will be prompted by a mark on the globe. The disadvantage of the system is that it can only be used on the day side of the Earth.

Now let's see what is to the right of the chair:

A hinged cover is visible below and to the right of the dashboard. A radio station is hidden under it. Below this cover, the handle of the automated control system (cessation and sanitary device, that is, the toilet) sticking out of the pocket is visible. To the right of the ACS is a small handrail, and next to it is the ship's attitude control handle. A television camera was fixed above the handle (another camera was between the dashboard and the porthole, but it is not on this layout, but it is visible in Bykovsky's ship in the photo above), and to the right - several covers of containers with a supply of food and drinking water.

The entire inner surface of the descent vehicle is covered with white soft fabric, so that the cabin looks quite cozy, although it is cramped in there, like in a coffin.

Here it is, the world's first spaceship. In total, 6 manned spacecraft Vostok flew, but unmanned satellites are still operated on the basis of this ship. For example, Biome, intended for experiments on animals and plants in space:

Or the topographic satellite Comet, whose descent module anyone can see and touch in the courtyard of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg:

For manned flights, such a system is now, of course, hopelessly outdated. Even then, in the era of the first space flights, it was a rather dangerous apparatus. Here is what Boris Evseevich Chertok writes about this in his book "Rockets and People":
“If the Vostok ship and all the modern main ones were put on the training ground now, they would sit down and look at it, no one would vote to launch such an unreliable ship. I also signed the documents that everything is in order with me, I guarantee flight safety. Today I I would never have signed it. Gained a lot of experience and realized how much we risked."