The Soviet Space Stations, Salyuts 6 & 7, and Mir

In the early 70's, the Salyut program (Salyuts 1 to 5) had been the main focus of the Soviet space program. The history of these first five space stations was checkered: only four Soyuz flights to the Salyuts had been successful. With so many failures, plans to make a more reliable space station were undertaken.

These new craft, Salyuts 6 & 7 , were similar in design to the previous models, but were larger. There were five compartments: two work compartments, one transfer compartment, a service compartment, and a connecting frustrum.

The new space stations would carry a large variety of scientific instrumentation: cameras to survey both the Earth (crops, mineral resources, topography), and the cosmos. The new Salyut also allowed two craft to simultaneously dock, allowing for the resupply of an existing crew.

Salyut 6 was launched to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of Sputnik, blasting off on Sept. 29, 1977. On Oct. 9, Soyuz 25 lifted off to dock with this craft. Unfortunately, every attempt they made to dock with the Salyut failed. The crew was forced to abort their mission and return.

The docking failure was a mystery and could only be investigated by sending another crew up. Soyuz 25 lifted off on Dec. 10. Instead of risking another failure, Soyuz 25 docked at the rear port. This was successful.

Cosmonaut Grechko then EVA'd to investigate the front docking mechanism. Finding nothing wrong he returned-just in time to rescue his comrade Romanenko who had accidently gone for an EVA of his own! The crew then stayed aboard for 96 days, breaking the American's Skylab 3 endurance record.

In order to stay in space, the average cosmonaut consumed about 50 lbs of supplies each day (water, food, oxygen). Thus, to maintain a presence in space required resupply ships. The Progress module was designed to perform this task. Each Progress could carry about 5,000 lbs. About 1/2 of this was usually in the form of propellant needed to keep the space station oriented, and to re-boost it to higher altitude to keep it in orbit.

A Progress resupply mission was launched every three to six weeks. During the lifetime of Salyut 6, 12 Progress flights carrying a total of 20 tons to space were neeed. The first Progress resupply came in January of '78.

To increase the PR value, the Soviets started ferrying foreign visitors to the Salyuts (remember, this was a time when nothing was happening in the US space program). This program, "Intercosmos", was a effort to conduct joint space missions with other countries. During Salyut 6, cosmonauts from Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, Bulgaria, Hungry, Vietnam, Cuba, Mongolia, and Romania visited under this program.

In the meantime, the Soyuz spacecraft continued to be modified. The new version, the "Soyuz T", flew in December of 1980. The original Soyuz was designed for a crew of three, but with the Soyuz 11 disaster, the craft was redesigned to carry only two. To increase productivity, the Soyuz was redesigned to carry three again, and renamed the Soyuz T. It was a little larger, and had a more sophisticated maneuvering system.

Salyut 6 was ordered to reenter the atmosphere in July of 1982. This was earlier than envisioned. A problem with the thrusters of Salyut 6 had developed, and the Soviet controllers thought they might not be able to control its reentry (it might hit a populated area). So using the motors of the new, and recently docked cargo vessel "Kosmos", the space station was propelled on to a proper reentry course.

The next space station, Salyut 7, was put into orbit in April of '82. A few weeks later its first two-man crew (Berezovoi & Lebedev) would arrive for duty. A month later, a crew of three, including a French astronaut, arrived to visit and conduct various medical experiments. They stayed aboard for about a week.

In August, another three-person crew would come to visit. This one carried the Soviet's second female cosmonaut, Svetlana Savitskaya. The original crew was then left alone for another month or so, but was becoming exhausted. In November, Berezovoi & Lebedev asked to return, after spending six months in space. This was granted, and they returned on December 10^th. They had spent 211 days in orbit.

The next flight, Soyuz T-8 (Titov, Strekalov, & Serebrov), could not dock due to a failure in the rendezvous radar, and the mission was aborted. Their backup crew, Soyuz T-9, launched two months later (6/83), successfully docked and unloaded supplies. The space station was starting to experience some problems. One of its three solar panels had failed, and a fuel line was ruptured during a resupply mission.

The interior of Salyut 7 was now chilly (50^oF), and humid. To fix these problems a rush repair mission was put together with two of the crew from Souyz T-8 (Titov & Strekalov). As they sat on the launch pad, a fire broke out. The situation deteriorated, and the emergency escape rocket was fired, just moments before the booster exploded!

With this failure, it was decided that the current Salyut 7 crew (Lyakhov & Alexandrov) should attempt to repair the solar panels. Their EVA was successful, and after verifying the fix, they returned to Earth.

The next crew (Kizim, Solovyev, & Atkov) arrived in Feb. of '84. They made six EVAs to repair the broken fuel line. They had a visiting Indian cosmonaut (Rakesh Sharma) who used the cameras to explore the arid regions of his country. They also had another visit from Svetlana Savitskaya, who accomplished a space first: the 1^st EVA by a female. After 237 days, Kizim, Solovyev, & Atkov, returned.

Shortly after their return, contact was lost with Salyut 7. A crew was sent to investigate, and they found that the space station was slowly tumbling, causing a loss of electrical power due to the improper and changing orientation of its solar panels. The Soyuz T-13 crew docked with the crippled Salyut, and got it back under control. With solar power back online, the station was returned to normal service.

A crew was sent up to spend 282 days in orbit on the fully supplied Salyut 7, but shortly afterwards one of the cosmonauts (Vasyutin) became ill, and the mission was aborted.

Space Station Mir

With Salyut 7 back in operation, it came as a surprise to western observers when the Soviets launched a new space station core on Feb. of '86. The core of Mir ("Peace") was very similar in design to the Salyuts. It was 43 ft long, had a maximum diameter of 14 ft, and weighed 23 tons. Its main change was in the forward docking compartment which had five docking ports. In addition there remained the aft docking port. Thus, theoretically, six modules could dock with this core.

The original plan for Mir was to have five modules, Kvant 1, Kvant 2, Krystall, Spektr, and Priorada attached to the main core. Soon after reaching orbit, the Soyuz T-15 crew docked with it and powered it up. After unloading two successive Progress modules, the T-15 crew unlocked and proceeded to dock with Salyut 7 where they were to finish the experiments that its earlier crew had not completed.

After 50 days aboard Salyut 7, Kizim & Solovyov returned to Mir along with 20 experiments from Salyut 7. After firing-up Mir, they conducted more experiments and returned to Earth in July '86 after 125 days in space.

Mir was now ready for the first Kvant module, but it wasn't ready yet. So another crew was sent up to occupy Mir. Finally, on 3/31/87 the Kvant module was launched. As it tried to dock it failed, almost colliding with the station! After some reprogramming, the docking was attempted again. This time things went better, and a "soft docking" was achieved, but something prevented an airtight docking.

This forced an EVA, and when cosmonaut Laveikin got to the docking module he found that a plastic bag had gotten stuck inside the mechanism. Ground control backed-off the Kvant, the bag was removed, and the Kvant successfully redocked.

The Kvant 1 was a complex, high-energy (x-ray) astrophysical observatory. It also contained both guidance equipment, and biology experiments. The Kvant had a large power consumption, and an additional solar panel was installed to allow the experimental program continue.

As with the Salyuts, the Soviets attempted to "internationalize" the Mir by flying astronauts from friendly countries. During this time, cosmonauts from successive crews established duration records of 326 days, and 346 days.

After a six month delay, the Kvant 2 was finally launched in Nov. of '89. The Kvant 2 carried mostly biological/medical experiments. Kvant 2 had some minor problems docking.

The next module to be sent for installation was the Krystall. It also had problems docking, but after some reprogramming was installed in Feb. of '90. Krystall contained some ovens/furnaces for material science experiments (growing crystals and such). Few exciting events occurred in 1990, though the Japanese did spend $12 million to put a journalist aboard Mir.

1991, however, would be much more eventful! In August, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (another Gorbachev site) signed a new treaty granting greater independence from the Soviet Union. A power struggle ensued, with the old, hard-line communists attempting a coup. This coup, however, did not have the support of the military or the general public. With former Speaker of the Supreme Soviet and "Moscow mayor" (the Soviet system didn't really have what we call mayors) Boris Yeltsin's defiance, the coup crumbled, and the Soviet Union dissolved.

During this entire time, a crew (Artsebarski & Krikalev) were circling above in Mir. No one had any idea how to proceed, so the crew just kept doing what they had been doing while awaiting the outcome. Eventually the cosmonauts returned. The space program had lost its way, and its funding, but there remained strong international support for Mir.

Chief among these was an agreement between the US and Russian governments in fall 1992 to have joint missions to Mir using the Space Shuttle. With the collapse of the USSR had come a collapse of the Russian economy. Their space program suffered like the rest of the country.

The first flight of the Space Shuttle to Mir, STS-63, occurred in February 1995. This mission would be a "fly-around", and not a docking mission. The first docking would not occur until June of '95.