David S. F. Portree

“ This he attributes to Mir’s being designed for long-duration flight, while the Shuttle is designed to support a crew for only short periods of time. [93]
Long stays in space also affect training and timeline preparation for Mir crews. Mir crews experience more “on-the-job-training” than Shuttle crews, because it is impossible to simulate a 6-month or 12-month stint on a station and train for every eventuality. Their schedules are much more loosely planned than those of Shuttle astronauts, who spend only a few precious days in space and must put virtually every minute to productive use. ”

“ The cosmonauts set about recharging the batteries. They used Soyuz-T 13 to turn the station to put its solar arrays in sunlight. On June 10 they turned on the air heaters. The cosmonauts relied on the Soyuz-T 13 air regeneration system until they could get the Salyut 7 system back in order. On June 13 the attitude control system was successfully reactivated. This was cause for jubilation, as it meant a Progress bearing replacement parts could dock with Salyut 7. Wall heaters were turned on only after all the frost had evaporated, in order to prevent water from entering equipment. ”

“ After docking in 1987, the front port Kvant antenna was folded down, its work done. Module blocks the main engines at the rear of the Mir base block. Since Kvant docked, all orbital maintenance maneuvers have been carried out by docked spacecraft. Six control moment gyros (gyrodynes) , with a total mass of 990 kg, which permit extremely accurate pointing of the complex (necessary for astronomical observations) . The gyrodynes reduce the amount of attitude control propellant needed by the Mir base block’s control thrusters. They do, however, use a great deal of electricity. ”

“ Three cosmonauts were to reach the station aboard a manned transport spacecraft called Siber (or Sever) (“north”) , shown in figure 2-2. They would live in a habitation module and observe Earth from a “sciencepackage” module. Korolev’s Vostok rocket (a converted ICBM) was tapped to launch both Siber and the station modules. In 1965, Korolev proposed a 90-ton space station to be launched by the N-1 rocket. It was to have had a docking module with ports for four Soyuz spacecraft. ”

“ Upon achieving hard dock—the first time a Soyuz docked with an inactive station—the crew confirmed through the electrical connectors in the docking collars that the Salyut 7 electrical system was dead. They carefully sampled the air in the station before opening the hatch. The station air was very cold, but breathable. Frost covered the walls and apparatus. The cosmonauts wore winter garb, including fur-lined hats, as they entered the station. The first order of business was to restore electric power. ”

“ September 28 Launch failure—An L1 ejects from its four-stage Proton launch vehicle when one of the six engines in the rocket’s first stage fails to operate. The launch escape system rescues the descent module. October 27- November 2 Cosmos 186 and Cosmos 188 are unmanned Soyuz spacecraft. They carry out the first automatic docking on October 30. November 9 Apollo 4—First flight of the Saturn V booster. It carries no crew. NASA declares the flight a complete success. November 22 Launch failure—An L1 ejects when the second stage of its Proton rocket fails. ”

“ On October 12, 1964, OKB- 52 began development of a space station system called Almaz (“diamond”) . When approved in 1967, Almaz comprised the single-launch Almaz space station with crew capsule; the TKS (figure 3-3) which supplied the station, delivered its crews, and provided them with living quarters; and the Proton booster for launching both Almaz station and TKS.
Development of the crew capsule, sometimes called Merkur (“Mercury”) (figure 3-4) was coordinated
Figure 3-2. ”

“ The space station concept is very old in Russia. Space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovskii wrote about space stations as early as 1903. [1] The first space station event relevant to this discussion occurred in March 1962, when Sergei Korolev’s OKB-1 design bureau (ancestor of RKK Energia–until recently, NPO Energia) produced a report called “Complex for the Assembly of Space Vehicles in Artificial Earth Satellite Orbit (the Soyuz) .” ”

“ Fuel conservation and problems with showers. On September 10 Ryumin wrote in his diary that the experiments requiring that Salyut 6 be maneuvered at a cost in fuel were complete, so the station was in a gravity-gradient stabilization mode at least until the next Progress arrived. In this mode it pointed the aft end of the Soyuz 37 spacecraft toward the Earth. This made Earth observations convenient, as most of the windows not blocked by equipment were located in the transfer compartment and pointed toward Earth. ”

“ July 27 Soyuz-TM 15 launch—Docks with Mir on July 29 carrying cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov, Sergei Avdeyev, and Michel Tognini (France) . Tognini returns to Earth with Viktorenko and Kaleri on August 10 in Soyuz-TM 14. Their Earth-landing system malfunctions, so the capsule lands hard and comes to rest upside down, trapping the crew until it can be turned over. July 31-August 8 STS-46—Atlantis deploys the Italian-built Tethered Satellite System and ESA’s EURECA experiment carrier on the STS-46 mission. ”

“ Four ports are lateral, with their docking planes parallel to the station’s long axis. They are used to berth modules which have docked at the fifth, longitudinal port (the front port) . There is no EVA hatch on the Mir base block, though before the arrival of Kvant 2 and Kristall the cosmonauts could egress through any of the five ports. The node is shorter than the Salyut 7 transfer compartment, accounting for Mir’s shorter overall length. ”

“ After separating from Energia’s second stage, Polyus had to flip 180° in order to use its service module engines to complete orbital insertion. An attitude control system failure caused Polyus to tumble end over end. When the service module engines fired for the first of two planned orbit insertion burns, they could not boost Polyus into orbit. The spacecraft, probably the heaviest Soviet payload ever, reentered over the South Pacific Ocean within minutes of its launch. ”

“ So it is with any book on Soviet/Russian spaceflight written in this time of transition.
Some readers may note what they perceive to be an undue emphasis on Soviet/Russian mission and hardware anomalies. This is partly a result of the document’s focus, which is, after all, on Soviet/Russian hardware history. (The reader will note that, where appropriate, U.S. anomalies are mentioned as well.) In addition, in the Soviet era, anomalies were often the chief (or only) way new information about secret hardware emerged. All countries have had their share of problems on the space frontier. ”

“ Soyuz 34 was launched unmanned to replace Soyuz 32, which had exceeded its 90-day stay limit on May 27. Arrival of Progress 34 helped ensure that Ryumin and Lyakhov would be able to complete their mission. Soyuz 34 also tested improvements to the Soyuz main engine meant to prevent recurrence of the Soyuz 33 failure. The spacecraft delivered 200 kg of cargo. Soyuz 32 returned to Earth unmanned with a cargo of experiment results and malfunctioning Salyut 6 equipment. The equipment was of interest to space station engineers. ”

“ The new spacecraft’s operations/service module was based on an FGB with the following attributes:
Contained all Polyus attitude control and internal systems control equipment, the telemetry system, the power supply system (twin solar arrays, as on the TKS vehicle) , the fairing jettison system, antennas, and the scientific experiment control systems. Polyus electronic systems unable to withstand hard vacuum were placed in the FGB’s pressurized compartment. Propulsion system had 4 sustainer engines, 20 attitude control thrusters, and 16 vernier engines. Approximate weight: 20,000 kg. ”

“ Soyuz 27 • Salyut 6 • Soyuz 26 January 11-16, 1978 Soyuz 27 arrives at Salyut 6. The Soviets hurried to take advantage of the undamaged Salyut 6 forward port. Soyuz 27 docked without incident at the front port carrying cosmonauts Oleg Makarov and Vladimir Dzhanibekov, who formed the first Visiting Expedition crew in the Soviet space station program (or, for that matter, in any space station program) . For the docking, the Tamyrs withdrew to their Soyuz 26 spacecraft and sealed the hatch into Salyut 6 behind them. ”

“ July 17- February 2, 1978 Cosmos 929 is the first flight of a TKS. It is put through unmanned maneuvering and propulsion system tests. The Merkur capsule lands in the Soviet Union after a month in orbit. The FGB is guided to destructive reentry on February 2, 1978. August 4 Launch failure destroys one Merkur capsule (the lower one) of a Proton launched dual Merkur capsule test. The top capsule is plucked free by the launch escape system. September 29 Salyut 6/DOS-5 launch. October 9-11 Soyuz 25—Vladimir Kovalyonok and Valeri Ryumin are unable to hard dock with the front port of Salyut 6. ”

“ Late in Salyut 6 Principal Expedition 2, the Fotons noted deviations in the control parameters of the fuel lines in the Salyut 6 propulsion system. During this period, analysis of readings from six sensors indicated a leak in one of three tanks in the Salyut 6 ODU. UDMH fuel had leaked into the nitrogen-pressurized bellows which pushed fuel from the tank to Salyut 6’s rocket motors. It threatened to damage nonmetallic parts of a valve which lead into the “supercharging line,” and to contaminate the entire propulsion system, including the attitude control system. ”

“ Mir relies much more heavily on automation than previous DOS-type stations, part of a general Soviet trend toward increasing automation in manned spacecraft. This is also evidenced by Soyuz-TM and Progress-M modifications. A French publication called it “the first computerized station in orbit.” In addition to the station’s control computers, each cosmonaut has a personal computer. [95] The station was launched with the Argon 16B computer. In 1990, its more capable Salyut 5B replacement, which had been delivered by Kvant 2 in 1989, was phased in. ”

“ August 28- September 1 Cosmos 238 is a successful unmanned Original Soyuz test. September 14-21 Zond 5 ends its unmanned circumlunar flight by making an unplanned splashdown in the Indian Ocean. October 11-22 Apollo 7—Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham are the first astronauts to fly in an Apollo spacecraft. They spend nearly 11 days in Earth orbit testing the Apollo CSM. October 25-30 Soyuz 2 and Soyuz 3—Georgi Beregevoi, in Soyuz 3, twice pproaches the unmanned Soyuz 2 spacecraft, but is unable to dock. ”