The author of this page will appreciate comments, corrections and imagery related to the subject. Please contact Anatoly Zak Launch complex for N1 1M1 prototype INSIDER CONTENT N1 No. 6L N1 No. 7L N1 No. 8L on the very eve of the Apollo-11 Moon landing Soviet engineers made their second clandestine attempt to fly their giant Moon rocket the mission ended just seconds after liftoff with a colossal explosion effectively knocking down the USSR in the Moon Race just days before NASA astronauts walked on the lunar surface Escape rockets fire at the top of the doomed N1 No as it begins a devastating collapse back to its launch pad just moments after liftoff Second mission of the N1 rocket (No. 5L) at a glance (537): 1969 July 3, 23:18:36.524 Moscow Time (537) The USSR presses on with N1 despite Moon Race setbacks On the eve of the second N1 launch in the Summer 1969, top managers in the Soviet space program no longer planned to beat the Apollo. In fact, the L3 expeditionary complex which had to ride to the Moon on top of the N1 had remained in the second seat behind several precursor projects with their own set of problems the head of cosmonaut training issued a report on the status of the crews for L3 lunar expedition project He listed 20 cosmonauts assigned by the Military Industrial Commission *Punctuation and list arrangment retained from the original document However, Kamanin stressed that at that point, the following cosmonauts were busy with training for the L1 (circumlunar project): Leonov At the same time, Nikolaev, Shonin, Gorbatko, Kuklin, Filipchenko, Kubasov, Volkov, Sevastyanov, Grechko were occupied within the 7K-OK (Soyuz) project Kamanin also characterized Feoktistov and Yeliseev as "working at TsKBEM," essentially implying that they had not left their original engineering jobs at the design bureau and Kamanin listed Yazdovsky and Fartushny as not "dispatched" (by their superiors) for training Volynov and Klimuk were available for the N1-L3 project training At the same time, Kamanin reported that (training) mockups of the LOK expeditionary vehicle and the LK lunar lander were in process of assembly and installation at Halls 439 and 444 essentially implying that they had not yet been available for flight simulations Kamanin detailed upcoming milestones in the N1-L3 project as well as the production vehicles assigned to achieve these objectives: which would have to fly with only some of the upgrades recommended in the wake of the first launch failure A full list of required changes would be implemented later on the rocket No At the end of May 1969, the program managers held a series of meetings in Tyuratam with the formal goal of "closing the issues" from the failed launch of the 3L rocket and moving on with the launch of vehicle No. 5L. The first meeting on May 29, which did not include the top brass, was considered a "rehearsal." At the event, Boris Chertok who was responsible for the flight control system explained to his superiors that despite all the changes his team would be unable to prevent the KORD diagnostics network from issuing random commands if its cables were damaged by a fire similar to the one that had destroyed the first rocket The head of the department at the General Machine-building Ministry who chaired the "rehearsal," told Chertok "better not to mention this" during the full State Commission meeting next day over the objections of propulsion engineers Chertok's team decided to disable the KORD's ability to shut down engines based on their pulsation even though the data from these sensors would still flow to ground control via telemetry channels for post-flight analysis To prevent possible interference in the KORD the command-carrying and data transmission lines were better isolated from each other into separate cable bundles and more reliable power generators were installed the thermal insulation was reinforced with special asbestos blankets In addition, a structural ring holding the propulsion system on the first stage of the rocket was reinforced. It was likely prompted by the telemetry data from the first launch about the acceleration reaching 35G exerted onto this structure, when all 30 engines had suddenly reached their full thrust at liftoff. (706) nobody had developed procedures for handling the explosion-prone liquid hydrogen which would have to be loaded into the new power-generating fuel cells onboard the LOK It was required to form a special commission to investigate the matter the commission set the launch of the N1 No On June 3, exactly a month before the second launch attempt, top Soviet space officials met again, this time at Korolev's main office at the TsKBEM campus in Podlipki near Moscow. Mishin once again ensured his industry bosses that his team had learned the lessons of the first failure and had taken measures to protect the KORD control system from interference 5L vehicle could be confidently sent on a mission to fly around the Moon Mishin also promised that the next vehicle (6L) would launch a fully equipped LOK spacecraft on a mission around the Moon with a subsequent return to Earth the spacecraft would enter an orbit around the Moon) Mishin claimed that all TsKBEM's systems were ready for flight and that his engineers were just waiting for some deliveries by subcontractors Deputy Chairman of the State Committee for Defense Industries Leonid Smirnov questioned whether Mishin was forthcoming about the problems facing such a challenging flight he had often contacted Smirnov's deputy Igor Bobyrev asking for his help in putting pressure on various suppliers Chertok tried to "save" Mishin telling that it would be realistic to manufacture and deliver all systems for the first LOK spacecraft during 1969 however it would then require a series of integrated tests his own deputy Konstantin Bushuev said that 6L could only realistically fly with a simplified L3S vehicle and his team could not guarantee a flight around the Moon fire an engine there to enter a high elliptical orbit A powerful party official Ivan Serbin demanded to fulfill the approved plan and warned that any downgrades of the program would have to be reported to the Central Committee The meeting than decided to let Minister Sergei Afanasiev reevaluate the plan and then to submit the final flight schedule to the Kremlin for approval Surprisingly, the next item on the agenda was the discussion of the Martian expedition and the development of a smaller sibling of the N1 rocket based on its three upper stages and designated N11 none of these proposals could attract any serious attention from the Soviet officials at the time Keldysh was the only person among the top brass interested to hear about Mars Mishin described the Interplanetary Orbital Ship MPK; The Earth Return Ship and a power-supply unit with a nuclear reactor to power electric engines The spacecraft would use artificial gravity and return to the Earth orbit after a couple of years in flight if the N1 rocket could be upgraded with a more powerful hydrogen upper stages two such boosters would be enough to support a manned mission to Mars Keldysh urged Mishin to continue Mars studies as long as they did not interfere with the ongoing work on the lunar project. However, the smaller N11 rocket was practically unanimously rejected as a duplicate of the already available Proton Mishin ensured the group that the hydrogen fourth stage for the N1 would be ready for ground tests in a year By the end of the meeting, Smirnov asked whether Mishin could provide a flight of three Soyuz spacecraft by the anniversary of the October revolution Chertok and Bushuev confirmed that such a flight had been on track Chertok had to supervise upgrades to the docking system which prevented his trip to Tyuratam to witness the launch of the N1 No Flight control computers installed inside the descent module of the L1A spacecraft had the task of sending commands to Block G and Block D after the entire stack had separated from the third stage of the N1 rocket in the low Earth orbit capturing two monumental rockets towering over the steppe which launched Apollo astronauts to the Moon the M1M rocket was returned back to the assembly building shortly before the scheduled launch of the 5L mission Preparations of the N1 No. 5L rocket on the launch pad at Site 110 went without major problems. However instead of the bitter cold of the previous launch campaign, the N1 personnel now endured an unbearable heatwave. Some officers now remembered winter with some nostalgia: "When you are freezing you are not thirsty at all." (685) After completion of fueling on the eve of the launch the team led by Vasily Yashkov heard the command on the intercom to "review the vehicle." They went through various access bridges of the gantry checking that all safety pins marked with red ribbons had been properly removed from the rocket where protective trenches had been dug out for the occasion Despite the official secrecy, everybody at the test range knew about the impending launch. As the local midnight approached, family members of launch personnel gathered on the outskirts of the residential area at Site 10 to see the N1 fly Many people stood on the roofs of their apartment blocks for the best view and even yelled to less informed neighbors the status of the countdown 5L rocket lifted off as scheduled from the "Right" pad at Site 110 on July 3 Telemetry officer Yuri Ivanchenko was sitting at the console inside the assembly building monitoring the combustion chamber pressure of the first stage engines displayed on his screen as animated bars "We've got preliminary (thrust)..." Ivanchenko yelled into the microphone as drops of sweat were running down his spine bars on screen jumped to the maximum pressure and a chorus of voices responded with "There is main (thrust)" The giant vehicle rose above the launch pad turning night into day as far as 50 kilometers away Ivanchenko heard the announcer reporting: "Five seconds -- flight normal 10 seconds -- flight normal," when suddenly several of his thrust indicators collapsed to zero "Pressure in engines 1 to 12 is zero," Ivanchenko yelled When the rocket climbed to an altitude of around 100 meters just 10.5 seconds after liftoff, some bright pieces fell off from its tail section. The colossus seemingly froze in mid-air and started tilting to the side. At the tip of the rocket, the emergency escape engines fired and carried the top section into the night. Moments later, the giant rocket with most of its propellant still onboard collapsed back onto the launch pad. (705) Ivanchenko dropped his head set and rushed to the window in the hallway He saw the fiery mushroom cloud silently rising over the launch pad he jumped away from the window toward the door and a moment later a loud bang slammed the window open and pieces of glass showered the floor As Lt. Colonel Semen Komarovsky later said, "Today,... I saw without exaggeration the end of the world, and not in a nightmare but while fully awake and standing right next to it." (706) In Leninsk, at Site 10 (Tyuratam's residential area) terrified residents saw the ominous glow of the failed launch, followed by a red mushroom cloud and the roar of the explosion. The festive atmosphere momentarily changed into the horror. (705) As the shockwave and the rain of metal debris subsided, Menshikov and his colleagues all emerged out of their shelter stunned but unhurt. Flames were still raging at the launch pad to the northeast under a starry night. The power was shut off around the entire center but five minutes later most facilities started getting their lights back on. (704) security services apparently intentionally disconnected still operational phone lines between technical facilities and the residential area leaving numerous family members agonizing for hours over the fate of their loved ones test officers and engineers were streaming back from their shelters to their regular work places Menshikov and his colleagues found their fueling station in total disarray Most buildings at Site 113 and surrounding facilities were in similar shape they were terrified to see numerous dead birds and small animals littering the steppe The heaviest damage was obviously at the epicenter of the explosion. The "Right" pad of the N1 rocket at Site 110 was completely wrecked. One of the 180-meter lightning towers collapsed and was twisted into a spiral. (705) Some pieces from the rocket were found as far as 10 kilometers away and a 400-kilogram gas reservoir landed on the roof of the assembly building at Site 112 Windows were blown off in buildings at Site 2 located six kilometers from the launch pad and as far as 40 kilometers away A main display window at the Luna cafe in the main residential area at Site 10 The total damage from the accident was put at 350 thousand rubles, probably a greatly underestimated amount. (704) Ivanchenko returned home only at the end of the day on July 4 his family members had long known his whereabouts from his colleagues who had their ways of bypassing KGB censors to call his home the rocket fell sideways on the launch pad Investigators were picking up debris from the blast including engines as far as one kilometer from the pad They discovered that the turbopump of engine No 8 had signs of melting and damage from an internal explosion The force of this blast was fatal for the entire rocket Various arteries leading to other engines were severed A huge fire likely fed by the severed propellant lines started the immediate destruction of the lower portion of the first stage the KORD system registered out-of-limit parameters on pressure and turbopump rotation rates in engines No The telemetry did not reveal how or why other engines had been shut down Investigators apparently could never establish why engine No 18 continued firing in the midst of total pandemonium Under pressure to find a culprit in the initial explosion propulsion engineers at the Kuznetsov design bureau insisted that some foreign object must have entered the pump They hypothesized that a steel diaphragm from a pulsation pressure sensor could have been torn off and ingested into the oxidizer pump The evaluation of the sensor and various experiments trying to simulate this scenario brought inconclusive results No other candidates for a "foreign object" in the pump could be identified Any suggestion that the pump could explode all by itself was politically unacceptable since it would stall the entire Soviet lunar program Chertok quoted a theory first put forward by TsKBEM engineer Ivan Raykov according to which a very slight shift of the pump's rotor off its rotation axis could cause its blades to scrape the static part of the pump and produce sparks it was impossible to prove or disprove such a scenario a "foreign object" became a favorite excuse for engine failures for the lack of better explanations Mishin did not attempt to blame the engine designer Nikolai Kuznetsov for the disaster, since they had both signed off on the decision of an interagency commission that certified the engines for flight tests back in 1967. However, when Ustinov reportedly asked Kuznetsov's main rival Valentin Glushko about possible culprits, he responded that he would never believe in "supernatural forces throwing foreign objects into pumps." (685) Unlike the first N1 flight completely missed by the US intelligence, the second launch or rather its disastrous aftermath was clearly captured on film by CIA's spy satellites. (693) In the midst of hot discussions inside the investigation commission news reached the USSR about the launch of Apollo-11 on July 16 the Moon Race was over for the USSR in the political sense it would do little to shake the enthusiasm of thousands of Soviet engineers for the exploration of the Moon and for other ambitious projects which would be possible with the introduction of the N1 rocket During one of the meeting discussing the matter optimists tried to find a silver lining in the situation first of all in the fact that there were no casualties in the accident Vladimir Barmin angrily said that he and hundreds of his workers had been "casualties," because they would now have to essentially rebuild the facility but in precious time for the space program It would take at least a year to restore the facility even with the most expeditious work To the comment that flight tests could resume immediately from the undamaged "Left" pad, Barmin said that he would never again give permission to launch until the rocket had been modified to block the engine cutoff over the launch pad. "Take it into the steppe and blow it up there," Barmin said. "You can make many rockets but the pad is the only one, and even that one is yet to be finished." (685) Again Next mission of the Moon Race: Zond-7 Page editor: Alain Chabot; last edit: July 6 Rollout of the N1 rocket to the launch pad 37 on the background) at Site 110 in June 1969 5L rocket on the "Left" pad at Site 110 at sunset The N1 rocket on the launch pad in Tyuratam A ground camera captured catastrophic explosion of engine No 8 on the first stage of the rocket at T-0.22 seconds before liftoff which doomed Vehicle 5L during the launch attempt on July 3 An explosion aboard the first stage triggers termination of the flight while one engine continues firing and causes the rocket to topple The emergency escape system fires to eject the descent vehicle from the failing rocket 5L rocket collapses back onto its launch pad seconds after liftoff The conflagration after the rocket impacts the ground A US reconnaissance satellite imaged the aftermath of the N1 explosion in Tyuratam Site update log About this site Mailbox SUPPORT THIS SITE! A shore of the Syr Darya river next to the so-called Site 0 where the residential area of Baikonur Cosmodrome was founded in 1955 the site of the future space center often looked as an inhospitable and uninhabitable desert the sprawling launch facility had to co-exist with an ancient world of the steppes for decades to come This clash of cultures would be captured in a novel by Chinghiz Aitmatov "Buranny Polustanok" (Snowstorm Junction) According to another veteran, the original narrow-gauge rail line from Tyuratam junction to the site of the future launch pad had been dismantled before the foundation of the test range, but its rail bed remained. (847) Chief of Staff of the Soviet Ministry of Defense approved the organizational structure of a new test range near Tyuratam This date would later become an official "birthday" of Baikonur Cosmodrome Next chapter: Early years of the test range in Tyuratam Click to enlarge Click to enlarge Baikonur Cosmodrome helped the Soviets reach outer space it's the world's primary spaceport – although its sense of secrecy remains The world's first and most secretive space base sits in the middle of a vast Central Asian desert 2,600km south-east of Moscow and 1,300km from Kazakhstan's two main cities It was from this remote part of the western steppe in 1957 that the Soviet Union successfully launched the first artificial satellite – Sputnik 1 – into orbit around Earth Yuri Gagarin launched from here to become the first human to fly into space aboard the Vostok 1 Valentina Tereshkova launched from Baikonur as the first woman in space After the retirement of Nasa's Space Shuttle programme in 2011 Baikonur became the planet's only working launch site to the International Space Station (ISS) 60 years after Gagarin's historic first flight it remains the world's main spaceport But how and why did a dusty outpost in the wilds of western Kazakhstan become humanity's unlikely gateway to outer space you need two things: to be far away from populated areas; and to be as close to the equator as possible to take advantage of the Earth's rotational speed which is fastest at that contour of the planet went to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in search of a remote locale within its borders that could accommodate long-range missile testing and rocket launches The Soviet Union had been experimenting with rocketry since the 1920s and obtained German V-2 rocket technology that significantly boosted its programme The Soviets identified a huge expanse of barren scrubland in the southern Kazakh steppe along the Syr Darya River at a tiny settlement called Tyuratam (or Toretam) There was already a railhead (a basic platform for goods and passengers to load and unload) there built for geologists and prospectors originally looking for oil treeless wasteland with an extreme climate: dust storms were frequent; temperatures soared above 50C in summer; and ice storms blew below -30C in winter desolate land is the last place that astronauts stay before they leave Earth and the first place they see when they return home the Soviet machine went to work bringing in thousands of labourers to build and assemble facilities and a set of launch pads including the biggest artificial crater on the planet: a 250m-long 45m-deep pit designed to harness the inferno of flame and smoke expunged from the world's largest rocket as it launched To throw their American competitors off the scent borrowing the name of another town a few hundred kilometres away and giving it to the cosmodrome and the nearby town In the documentary about his record-breaking stay aboard the ISS, A Year in Space Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly described Baikonur as a kind of halfway house to space: "In some ways it makes a little bit of sense to me to come to a place like this first that is already isolated from what is normal to you because it seems more like it's a stepping stone to someplace that's further isolated one remote place to a more remote place." In his book, Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space Stephen Walker wrote that control of space was both an ideological quest and a military matter Rockets were first developed to fly into space but government minds quickly realised their potential to carry ballistic missiles that could drop bombs on faraway enemy territory Satellites orbiting Earth could also provide an astronomical view into foreign lands that human spies would have trouble reaching the United States tried to save face on its publicly stalled attempts to get a person into space Soviet secrecy benefitted the USSR's programme If tragedy were to strike during a US launch secrecy offered freedom to take bigger risks and to move faster and with more urgency "The Soviets were protecting their missile site protecting their technology – the R7 missile was the biggest intercontinental ballistic missile in the world at the time People were terrified that the Americans would get hold of this technology With the fall of the Soviet Union in December 1991 Kazakhstan gained independence and suddenly Russia's most important space base was on foreign soil the Russians signed an agreement with Kazakhstan to lease Baikonur at an expense of approximately 7 billion rubles (£82.5 million) a year A growing number of tourists now visit Baikonur to watch launches The town is essentially a Russian exclave surrounded by Kazakhstan and the cosmodrome is a restricted facility operated by Roscosmos Travellers must be on a guided tour arranged through an operator that is certified to apply for a pile of entry permits Elena Matveeva, project manager for Vegitel one of the main tour operators to Baikonur said this is part of the cosmodrome's draw "It gives you an opportunity to visit a unique place you cannot visit by yourself You have to come [through] an authorised tour operator who can [apply for] access clearance." Baikonur comprises both the cosmodrome – a vast 7000-sq-km tract of land with a complex of launchpads and hangars – and the town (formerly Tyuratam) The town of Baikonur is in many ways a perfect relic of the Soviet 1960s Stoic mosaics depicting muscular comrades heralding a new era of space still decorate entrance gates and the walls of the town's functional crumbling hangars stand side-by-side next to the original minimalist cottages where Yuri Gagarin and the early cosmonauts slept the night before they went into space • Qurt: A Kazakh cheese of resilience • The world's largest walnut harvest • The mystery of Central Asia's desert kites Most tourists come specifically to witness a rocket launch. But Gianluca Pardelli, founder and director of Soviet Tours an agency specialising in travel to the former USSR said Baikonur is interesting for its historical and cultural merits "The namesake city next to the cosmodrome is a perfect example of Soviet urban planning in the middle of nowhere – it's this Soviet planned town in the middle of the Kazakh steppe and desert." A typical tour to Baikonur includes visits to launch facilities, including Gagarin's Start, the pad where Yuri first went into space. The Museum of Baikonur Cosmodrome History chronicles the spaceport's storied history: "It has things that you wouldn't find anywhere else in any other space museum in the world," said Walker "It's full of strange artefacts and odds and sods and bits and pieces very much celebrating the glory days of the Soviet space programme." involving a flight to one of Kazakhstan's main cities – Astana or Almaty – followed by an internal flight to the outpost city of Kyzylorda and a four-hour road journey or slow train west across the flatlands to Baikonur you have a choice of an international hotel which also accommodates the astronauts; or a cheaper Tourists attending a launch participate in festivities including watching the roll-out of the Russian Soyuz rocket as it trundles on a specialised rail car from the hangar to the launch pad and a seeing-off ceremony for the astronauts (or cosmonauts as they are known in Russian) as they board a bus to head to the spacecraft seeing the rocket roll-out was the highlight of his visit "You stand right next to the rocket and follow it to Launch Pad No Joy said that travelling to Baikonur was his lifelong dream "I have always wanted to visit Baikonur since I was a young child It was the secret Soviet launch site behind the Iron Curtain." the experience of attending a launch is emotional "It's like a combination of living history and a spectacular event Because when you see the rocket lifting off you're a part of this historical event And somehow you feel that these cosmonauts going to space are so dear to you." In November 2020, American company SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, launched its first Crew Dragon mission, sending a crew to the ISS from Nasa's Kennedy Space Center in Florida It was the first time a crewed mission had launched from the US since the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2010 Russia has also been constructing its own new spaceport But Russia is optimistic about Baikonur's continued operation In an exclusive statement for this article Roscosmos said that the new Vostochny Cosmodrome would not result in a decrease in activities at Baikonur in cooperation with [the] Republic of Kazakhstan is creating the new Baiterek rocket space complex at Baikonur Another important project is the world-famous Gagarin's Start launchpad modernisation for the modern Soyuz-2 launch vehicle operation." Whatever its future as a working spaceport the value of Baikonur as a piece of living history Soviet nostalgia and human cultural heritage is indisputable Beijing and Washington may all be the centres of empires past or present but it was from a dusty railway stop in the middle of the Kazakh steppe that humanity took its first foray into the cosmos Join more than three million BBC Travel fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "The Essential List". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. {"image":{"pid":""}} The tiny German island with a population of 16During the winter, islanders must cope with extreme weekly floods. The island tradition firing up a gender rowOut on Scotland's remote Shetland Islands, a famous Viking festival is firing up a strange battle for equality. 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Open navigationClose navigationHome All the major chapters in the American story from Indigenous beginnings to the present day History from countries and communities across the globe named Sputnik after the Russian word for “fellow traveler,” was launched at 10:29 p.m Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds and circled Earth once every hour and 36 minutes its elliptical orbit had an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators Those in the United States with access to such equipment tuned in and listened in awe as the beeping Soviet spacecraft passed over America several times a day and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere for technological dominance spurred the U.S Sputnik was launched to correspond with the International Geophysical Year a solar period that the International Council of Scientific Unions declared would be ideal for the launching of artificial satellites to study Earth and the solar system many Americans feared more sinister uses of the Soviets’ new rocket and satellite technology which was apparently strides ahead of the U.S Sputnik was some 10 times the size of the first planned U.S which was not scheduled to be launched until the next year and scientific community were caught off guard by the Soviet technological achievement and their united efforts to catch up with the Soviets heralded the beginning of the “space race.” Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on October 4th On October 4, 1777, 11,000 Patriots under General George Washington attempt an early morning attack on British General William Howe’s 9,000 British troops at Germantown, Pennsylvania, five miles north of the British-occupied capital city of Philadelphia. Washington’s Continental forces were poorly trained, poorly fed and poorly clothed. Nonetheless, Washington thought them ready to fight and […] President Abraham Lincoln observes a balloon demonstration near Washington, D.C. Both Confederate and Union armies experimented with using balloons to gather military intelligence in the early stages of the war, but the balloons proved to be dangerous and impractical for most situations. Though balloons were not new, many felt that their military applications had yet […] On October 4, 1895, 21-year-old Englishman Horace Rawlins wins the first U.S. Open golf tournament, edging Willie Dunn and others with a 36-hole total of 173 at the Newport (Rhode Island) Golf Club, an oceanside course. Rawlins worked at the Newport Golf Club as an assistant to his instructor, William Davis. As the Chicago Chronicle […] In the early hours of October 4, 1918, German Chancellor Max von Baden, appointed by Kaiser Wilhelm II just three days earlier, sends a telegraph message to the administration of President Woodrow Wilson in Washington, D.C., requesting an armistice between Germany and the Allied powers in World War I. By the end of September 1918, […] On October 4, 1927, sculpting begins on the face of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota. It would take another 12 years for the granite images of four of America’s most revered presidents—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt—to be completed. The monument was the brainchild of a […] Legendary blues singer Bessie Smith is buried near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 4, 1937. Some 7,000 mourners attended her funeral. Smith had been killed a few days before when the old Packard she was driving hit a parked truck near Coahoma, Mississippi, between Clarksdale and Memphis. There is no record of Smith’s exact birth date, […] On October 4, 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series at last, beating the New York Yankees 2-0. They’d lost the championship seven times already, and they’d lost five times just to the Yanks—in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953. But in 1955, thanks to nine brilliant innings in the seventh game from 23-year-old […] Pope Paul VI addresses 150,000 people in St. Peter’s Square in Rome and calls for an end to the war in Vietnam through negotiations. Although the Pope’s address had no impact on the Johnson administration and its policies in Southeast Asia, his comments were indicative of the mounting antiwar sentiment that was growing both at […] On October 4, 1970, singer Janis Joplin dies of an accidental heroin overdose and was discovered in her Los Angeles hotel room after failing to show for a scheduled recording session. She was 27 years old. In the summer of 1966, Janis Joplin was a drifter; four years later, she was a rock-and-roll legend. She’d […] 1988 Televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted on federal charges of mail and wire fraud and of conspiring to defraud the public. The case against the founder of Praise the Lord (PTL) Ministries and three of his aides exploded in the press when it was revealed that Bakker had sex with former church secretary Jessica Hahn. On […] On October 4, 1990, Beverly Hills, 90210, a TV drama about a group of teenagers living in upscale Beverly Hills, California, debuts on Fox; it will eventually become one of the top-rated shows on the new “fourth network,” which launched in 1986. Created by Darren Star and produced by Aaron Spelling, the show turned its […] A cargo plane crashes into an apartment building near an airport in Amsterdam, Holland, on October 4, 1992. Four people aboard the plane and approximately 100 more in the apartment building lost their lives in the disaster. An El-Al Boeing 747 cargo jet was scheduled to bring 114 tons of computers, machinery, textiles and various […] On October 4, 2011, Michael Morton, who spent 25 years in prison for his wife’s murder, is released after DNA evidence implicates another man in the crime. The prosecutor in the case later was accused of withholding evidence indicating that Morton was innocent. On the afternoon of August 13, 1986, a neighbor found 31-year-old Christine […] NASA astronaut Bill Anders snapped the awe-inspiring view. Since the Apollo missions began, space programs have offered a unique perspective on our home planet. At the beginning of the U.S. space program, NASA's selection process sought men who weren't too tall, could handle pressure and isolation. Until 1989, Russians claimed they were not trying to reach the Moon first and that the U.S. was in “a one-nation race." We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate Uncover fascinating moments from the past every day Learn something new with key events in history from the American Revolution to pop culture you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Global Media You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States Charles Vick is a Senior Technical and Space Policy Analyst. Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net three people will rocket into space from a cosmodrome in Kazakhstan that has a fascinating history But with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox The first American to fly into space on a Russian spacecraft (The Soyuz is manufactured in Russia but launches from Kazakhstan after being brought there by rail.) who have their own separate launch facilities.) allowing American astronauts to once again launch from U.S And Baikonur may also fade from Russian importance after the lease expires in 2050 and the country eventually aims to launch crewed missions from that site although the exact timing hasn't been disclosed Originally published on Live Science Elizabeth HowellFormer Live Science ContributorElizabeth Howell was staff reporter at Space.com between 2022 and 2024 and a regular contributor to Live Science and Space.com between 2012 and 2022 Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House speaking several times with the International Space Station witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents and participating in a simulated Mars mission 2022) is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams.  Doomed Soviet spacecraft tumbling toward Earth may already have its parachute out Doomed Soviet satellite from 1972 will tumble uncontrollably to Earth next week — and it could land almost anywhere Secret 'drug room' full of psychedelic 'snuff tubes' discovered at pre-Inca site in Peru Testimonials Kosmos-146 Kosmos-154 Chelomei's LK spacecraft Soyuz 7K-OK DALS instrument package Kosmos-133 7K-OK No. 1 Kosmos-140 Dual Soyuz mission Kosmos-212/213 On July 14, 1968, unknown to the world, disaster struck on the launch pad in Tyuratam, resulting in the death of one person and injury to another. The accident prevented the 7th Soviet attempt to launch an unpiloted version of the circumlunar L1 vehicle (later known as Zond) and was followed with a harrowing recovery operation on the launch pad Previous chapter: L1 No. 7L Service gantry approaches the UR-500K-L1 vehicle on the launch pad Ironically, according to plans in place between around April and August 1967, Vehicle L1 No. 8L could be the first of at least three spacecraft to carry pairs of cosmonauts behind the Moon as early as the end of 1967 or the beginning of 1968. (774) Obviously, it was not to be the case, because the previous flights within the L1 program revealed numerous problems with the spacecraft itself and its UR-500K rocket 8L vehicle was re-scheduled to a period between June and August 1968 and it was now meant to be an unmanned test flight The flight program included a loop behind the Moon and landing back on Earth When the assembly and testing of Vehicle No. 8L was completed on June 21, its liftoff was set for July 21, 1968. General Nikolai Kamanin, who led cosmonaut training, was planning to fly to the launch site in Tyuratam on July 17 with a group of cosmonauts involved in the training for the subsequent piloted L1 missions behind the Moon. (820) On Saturday, July 13, the State Commission chaired by Lt. General A.G. Mrykin gathered at Site 92 in Tyuratam and cleared Vehicle No. 8L for the rollout to the launch pad. The head of the TsKBEM design bureau Vasily Mishin The transfer of the UR-500 rocket with the L1 No. 8 spacecraft began traditionally at 7:00 in the morning on July 14, 1968. By 8:30 in the morning, the vehicle arrived at the "Left" launch pad at Site 81 and the pad personnel began erecting the rocket in the vertical position The 8T185 service gantry was then rolled onto the pad and its access bridges were folded around the rocket. Officers from the 4th Test Directorate, 4 NIU, responsible for testing of the UR-500 series began the seemingly routine processing of their 10th flight-worthy vehicle around 150 members of the launch personnel were working at various levels of the gantry and on the launch pad a senior test officer Ivan Evteev was on the bottom level of the service gantry about to get into the elevator for a ride upstairs followed by the dull sound of the vehicle hitting the gantry Numerous flying shards of metal were loudly colliding with the metal structure of the tower and torn fragments of thermal insulation were raining down to the ground Evteev heard the rumbling of multiple feet of soldiers and officers running down the stairs he recognized a military engineer Captain L but followed by a conscript soldier with a bloodied hand the service structure was completely deserted and an eerie silence descended over the facility backdropped by flakes of insulation still floating to the ground the lucky escapees saw huge twisted pieces of metal hanging from the service gantry around Level 7 The tilted body of the L1 spacecraft was visibly leaning against the gantry It quickly became clear that the upper composite, including the L1 spacecraft had been completely severed by the blast from the rest of the rocket near the Block D upper stage The estimated 20-ton section of the spacecraft was now hanging precariously inside the gantry and could seemingly collapse further down at any moment If it smashed into the pressurized tanks of the UR-500K rocket below Rescuers brought Khridin downstairs, where an ambulance was waiting at the base of the pad. Evteev then ordered guards to cordon off the service gantry until the arrival of the specialists. (664) General Kamanin learned about the incident on July 17 from a telephone call from Georgy Tyulin, who led the State Commission. Kamanin quoted Tyulin as saying that three people had been killed in the accident, though, in his notes, Kamanin also corrected his previous erroneous record that the launch pad and the rocket had been destroyed. (820) Sometime after the accident, top officials arrived at the pad. The group included Mishin and his deputy for testing Evgeny Shabarov Acting Chief of the Test Range; Major General Anatoly Kirillov Deputy for Space; Vladimir S Chief of the 1st Test Directorate and his deputy Vladimir Bululukov After inspecting the facility, the officials held the first improvised meeting, where Evteev reported on the situation with the L1 spacecraft; I. D. Trashenkov described the overall situation with the rocket and the spacecraft; and I. G. Shakhov discussed the launch pad equipment. (664) To complicate matters further, 30 kilograms of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide was located in the Descent Control System, SUS, of the Descent Module and in the tanks of the DO attitude control thrusters in the Instrument and Aggregate Module of the L1 spacecraft Block D contained 4.5 liters of trimethylaluminum used in the Multiple Ignition Unit the thermal control system aboard the L1 spacecraft was filled with highly flammable gasoline-based coolant and more than 150 pyrotechnic charges were live-wired to the power supply system The pair of spring-loaded solar panels on the L1 spacecraft were armed and under electric current Luckily, a long spiral of the cooling lines wrapped around the spacecraft remained fully intact, certainly preventing a much bigger explosion, which could easily result in mass casualties. (A year and half earlier, a leak from the severed cooling lines of the Soyuz spacecraft caused a catastrophic fire on the launch pad.) The situation on the pad was greatly complicated by the extremely hot weather, with mid-day temperatures reaching plus 45 degrees. (52) It was particularly worrisome, because the heat could lead to the explosion of either nitrogen tetroxide inside the SOZ pods or of the hydrogen peroxide in the attitude control system. (400, 664) The managers immediately called the fueling service of the 1st Test Directorate (responsible for L1 fueling) based at Site 31 on the opposite site of the launch site. By 14:00, the fueling team arrived with cisterns for hydrogen peroxide and by 17:00, this most unstable chemical was successfully drained from the spacecraft. (664) In the meantime, the technical management took a break for lunch and then resumed meeting to discuss what to do next. (664) (Mogila later joined the salvage operations He directly helped in the dismantling of the L1 spacecraft and the remaining rocket.) Voytenko invited Evteev to his office for a detailed account of the accident but they were soon interrupted by a telephone call from Moscow the Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces demanding to know who had overruled his previous order not to conduct launch operations on weekends Voytenko responded that he was not the one who had allowed the rollout on Sunday Voytenko had signed off on the move as one of the members of the State Commission But Voytenko preferred to shift the blame to General Mrykin who had chaired the fateful meeting Marshall Krylov and Deputy Minister Tyulin arrived at the launch pad and inspected the rocket from a distance of 100 meters 132 for another feisty technical discussion Twice during that event, a security officer from RVSN tried to blame Evteev for the accident, but both times, General Kirillov urged overzealous apparatchik not to jump to conclusions until the investigation was complete. When the official insisted, Kirillov told him to leave Evteev alone and let him do his work. (664) TsKBEM specialists discuss a crisis on the launch pad (left to right): Yuri Semenov According to the emerging picture of the accident stray electricity in the defective cabling network apparently triggered a faulty command to pressurize the oxygen tank in the Block D formed a team of electric engineers to look into that scenario The State Commission now chaired by the Minister of the General Machine Building Sergei Afanasiev ordered an attempt to salvage the remnants of the vehicle and try to preserve the launch pad from serious damage Afanasiev's deputy Tyulin took charge for planning the potential operation. (664) Vasily Mishin supervised the work in respect to the spacecraft and Yu Kirillov coordinated the interaction of the salvage team with the range services According to Kamanin's notes made as late as July 17 there was an idea to use Mi-6 or V-10 heavy helicopters to extract the damaged spacecraft from the service tower However in addition to the great danger to the helicopter crews trying to pull up what would be essentially a ticking bomb the mass of the cargo to be lifted was estimated at 14 tons while the helicopters' lifting capacity was limited to 8 or 10 tons splitting the spacecraft into multiple sections would be required first Still, Kamanin arranged with the Deputy Minister of the Aviation Industry V. A. Kazakov to immediately dispatch the crew of the V-10 helicopter led by chief pilot B. V. Zemskov to Tyuratam, so the pilots could assess the situation for the themselves. (820) Ultimately the idea of using the helicopter was dropped A special cable drum driven by two electric motors was installed around 350 or 400 meters from the pad behind a fortified fence and was wired to a power generator of the launch facility The electric motor was to be connected to a special beam with a pulley mechanism which would be mounted at the top of the service gantry The beam was designed first to lift the upper composite from the tower and then lower it to the ground, while simultaneously pulling it away from the service gantry. A special trailer was brought at the foundation of the pad, where it was prepared to receive the wreckage. (400) Several working groups were formed to support various aspects of the operation. P. M. Vorobiev, E.I. Korzhenevsky, V. M. Kudinov from TsKBEM calculated the actual center mass of the partially destroyed upper composite and designed a beam with two bandages, which could be used to lift the damaged structure. (52) it was necessary to slice the mangled payload fairing into pieces and to drain the maximum amount of flammable propellants as well as unplug pyrotechnic charges and remove the emergency escape rocket Gavrilov and Valery Ryumin (the future cosmonaut) were responsible for disconnecting the pyrotechnics and solar panels from the batteries and disengaging the emergency escape rocket A brigade from the ZEM experimental plant in Podlipki was given the most dangerous responsibility of cutting the payload fairing removing solar panels and disconnecting those pyrotechnic devices that were reachable could the propellant drainage operation be attempted a loose metal chard propelled by a gust of wind seriously injured Lameshin but other members of the team successfully deactivated the most dangerous systems of the vehicle five tons of kerosene were carefully drained into a pre-positioned cistern Hydrogen peroxide from SUS and DO systems was also successfully drained and the tanks of the URMD SOZ system were removed without an accident The BMZ Multiple Ignition Unit with trimethylaluminum was removed next but only a portion of the coolant fluid from the thermal control system could be drained the draining of the toxic propellant from the KDU propulsion system proved to be completely impossible the super delicate and dangerous operation went without a hitch Following the extraction of the upper composite, the three booster stages of the UR-500K rocket were successfully returned to the vehicle processing building largely intact and the launch pad had been spared of any major damage. (52) Kamanin wrote that the third stage of the UR-500K rocket had to be replaced, but the L1 vehicle turned out to be in good enough shape to be reused after new series of tests. (820) According to one recollection, it took nearly a month to completely dismantle the rocket from the pad. (400) A number of workers who had especially distinguished themselves during the operation received 500-ruble bonuses and other active participants got 250 rubles. (664) Notes in Mishin's diaries indicate that the accident investigation entered the finishing stages in the first week of August 1968 and the cables produced at ZIKh and the Krasnaya Zarya plant in Leningrad were suspected as culprits. (774) Evteeev also confirmed in his memoirs that Krasnaya Zarya's cables were at fault, adding that they had not been properly tested by the test personnel at the launch site. (664) The investigation concluded that the faulty electric connection in the ground cable line inadvertently activated the pressurization of the propellant tank in the Block D stage. The faulty cable was apparently not sufficiently grounded and was leaking stray electricity through its insulation, triggering the pressurization of the tank. (52) According to one account, a pressure of 210 atmospheres instead of the prescribed 47 atmospheres had been forced into the pressurization tanks inside the oxidizer tank before they finally ruptured. (400) A delay with the removal of the cover from a drainage valve, which could automatically drop the dangerous levels of pressure in the tank, was also mentioned as a contributing factor in the accident. (52) Although the faulty connection was the result of the manufacturing defect in the cable The deadly explosion took place on the launch pad after a command from the test manager via an intercom system of the launch facility directing the processing personnel to inspect the vehicle specialists led by Ivan Khridin were already deployed at Level 7 to check on the Block D Khridin was conducting an inspection of avionics inside the Block D stage through an open hatch Khridin was struck with metal debris and died of head injuries there was not a word about the accident in the open Russian sources until the dissolution of the Soviet Union even though the US intelligence services apparently quickly learned at least the basic facts of what had happened Following the publication of the original description of the accident in 1996 by the industry, another account originating from test officers in Tyuratam was made public in 2000. It added a number of crucial details and questioned the official conclusion of the investigation. (52, 233) at some point in the development of Block D engineers at TsKBEM introduced a safety cover to be installed on the Drainage Safety Valve Made from the material 10 times stronger than the walls of the tank itself the cover was intended to prevent accidental depressurization through the drainage valve and the subsequent collapse of the thin-walled tank during the transfer of the stage from the assembly building to the launch pad along with the rest of the rocket without any external source of pressurization However the developers failed to notice that once the UR-500K rocket is installed on the launch pad in vertical position, a special interface plate at the bottom of the rocket automatically re-connects the vehicle to various ground systems of the launch pad including the nitrogen pressurization line The ground equipment then pumps nitrogen into the system as necessary while the DPK drainage valve on the tank can always reduce any excessive pressure.. if the DPK valve itself is not plugged by the safety cover which is supposed to be removed by the pad personnel the specialists can reach the tank only after the arrival of the service gantry and the deployment of access bridges which obviously happens sometime after the rocket has already been in vertical position and connected to ground supply systems and test specialists in Tyuratam all failed to anticipate this potentially deadly issue According to that account, after the accident, Mishin Vladimir Barmin (launch systems developer) and Nikolaenok were looking for an explanation of the accident they were informed that during testing of the launch equipment with a mockup vehicle either the whole prototype of the rocket or its Block D stage was not available which controlled the pressurization in Block D the cable was tested and was found to be susceptible to stray current Mishin and others used that problem as a convenient decoy to refocus the investigation on the manufacturing defects and they were not interested in looking beyond that TsKBEM's faulty design was the primary culprit and the inadequate oversight by test specialists at the 4th Test Directorate was the main contributing factor Next chapter: Mission of Soyuz 7K-OK No. 9 (Kosmos-238) Read much more about the history of the Russian space program in a richly illustrated A rollout of the UR-500K-L1 vehicle to the launch pad The service gantry approaches the UR-500K-L1 vehicle Payload section of the L1 (Zond) spacecraft with the Emergency Escape System, SAS. Credit: 152 Immediately after Soyuz-4 blasted into orbit from Site 31 in Tyuratam on Jan. 14, 1969, officials supervising the dual flight turned their attention to Site 1 where the second rocket was ready for liftoff with Vehicle No Previous chapter: Soyuz-4 lifts off At 03:00 in the morning, an An-12 transport aircraft landed at the Krainy airfield in Tyuratam. It brought 10 copies of various newspapers with reports about the launch of Soyuz-4 and a letter to Shatalov from his wife and children. (820) Members of the State Commission met at 05:15 in the morning and approved the launch of Vehicle No. 13 at 10:04:30 Moscow Time. After the meeting, Kamanin stopped by the command post and spoke to Shatalov in orbit. The pilot reported that everything worked as planned aboard Soyuz-4. Kamanin reassured him that the second crew was preparing for liftoff. (820) On the morning of January 15, crew members of Soyuz-5 departed for the launch pad at the same time as Shatalov had done a day earlier, but probably because Site 1 was much closer to the residential area of Tyuratam, than Site 31 was their bus approached the launch complex considerably ahead of time Because access to the pad during the fueling was strictly prohibited the driver parked the bus behind one of the auxiliary buildings around kilometer away and opened the door Yeliseev was craving for a smoke and saw a Volga sedan parked nearby with General Leonid Goreglyad Yeliseev approached him and asked for a cigarette Goreglyad gave him a pack but recommended to get into the car to smoke Yeliseev barely burned a half of a cigarette when the general suddenly commanded "It is the time!" Yeliseev and his crew mates quickly got into the bus and around two minutes later it drove onto the pad. (849) By that time, Kamanin, who was waiting for the crew at the pad, had begun to seriously worry because just minutes before their planned arrival there was no sight of the cosmonauts' bus and accompanying cars as far as eye could see into the steppe. To his surprise, the caravan suddenly appeared just in time. (820) the launch facility was crowded with people The cosmonauts bid farewell to the support personnel in the bus and stepped out on the concrete Boris Volynov without much emotion delivered a standard report to Kerimov about readiness for the flight Kerimov wished them successful flight and a safe return to Earth Frolov approached and led the crew to the elevator of the service gantry At the top of the gantry they waved to well wishers and noticed that their bus was still parked at the pad in case of another aborted launch they dropped their winter clothing and gave it to a technician with a big plastic bag they boarded the spacecraft through an opening in the payload fairing hidden behind a plastic enclosure Inside the Habitation Module they were met by a worker from the factory that built Soyuz. He was responsible for closing the hatch between the Descent Module and the Habitation Module so he had to say hello and goodbye in a short sequence He gave a hug to each cosmonaut before parting with them Yeliseev discovered that his seat in the capsule was a bit small, but he hoped to fit himself tightly in the next two hours before liftoff. (849) Volynov established stable communications with Beregovoi in the firing control room The pilot also started a TV broadcast from the capsule which worked well this time Aleksei Yeliseev and Evgeny Khrunov lifted off aboard Soyuz-5 It was the second Soviet mission carrying three people and the first multi-member crew flying aboard the Soyuz spacecraft As usual, the four boosters of the first stage separated two minutes into the flight followed by the payload fairing around half a minute later Yeliseev remembered oscillations of the rocket, and ups and downs of g-forces, until weightlessness suddenly came, marking the separation of the third stage 535 seconds after liftoff. (849) the cosmonauts saw a timer start ticking and a navigation globe indicating the position of the spacecraft relative to the Earth's surface confirming that the spacecraft was free from its rocket According to Mishin's notes the spacecraft entered the following orbit: Mission control radioed to the crew that their spacecraft was in a good orbit and they could unbuckle from their seats Yeliseev remembered an unpleasant feeling in the head, resembling a tilted position of the body. When the cosmonauts got into the Habitation module, Yeliseev noticed that his and his colleagues' faces were all swelled from blood rushed to the head in the absence of gravity. (849) As planned, the Soyuz-5 entered orbit around 10,000 kilometers from Soyuz-4. However, around three hours (or two orbits) after launch, Soyuz-5 conducted an orbit correction maneuver aimed to shorten the distance between the two spacecraft. (849) Kamanin and other officials departed Tyuratam for Crimea aboard an Il-18 aircraft General Kutasin warned them about heavy fog in Crimean airports and they had to land at Simpheropol because airfields in Saki and Feodosiya were closed When they arrived at mission control at NIP-16, at the end of January 15, General Kuznetsov and cosmonaut Pavel Belyaev reported that both Soyuz spacecraft were in good shape and were expected to reenter the communications range at 3:00 in the morning on January 16. (820) several tablets of powdered cottage cheese the crew consumed all of this without much appetite All three then glued to windows watching the Earth which showed no signs of life and their feeling of desolation was further reinforced by a complete silence they were struck by the view of myriads of stars including famous constellations of the southern sky which they had previously seen only in a planetarium all three cosmonauts messed up their schedule When the cosmonauts finally got back into their flight seats to sleep, they realized how cold it was in the cabin, but they could not do anything about it. Yeliseev shivered throughout the night falling in and out of sleep and waiting for the new work day for relief. He assumed that Volynov and Khrunov were in the same situation. (849) Next chapter: Soyuz-4 and -5 dock in orbit Page editor: Alain Chabot; Last edit: January 15 Crew of Soyuz-5 arrives at launch pad to board spacecraft Crew of Soyuz-5 on the launch pad (left to right): Yeliseev the Soyuz-7 spacecraft with Anatoly Filipchenko Vladimir Volkov and Viktor Gorbatko onboard lifted off from Tyuratam The successful launch brought for the first time the number of cosmonauts in orbit to five people when counting Georgy Shonin and Valery Kubasov who had reached space around 24 hours earlier aboard Soyuz-6 Previous chapter: Launch of Soyuz-6 At 10:30 on October 12, 1969, the State Commission convened at Site 2 and approved the launch of Soyuz-7 at 13:44:42 Moscow Time to make it possible for the fresh spacecraft to intercept its predecessor in orbit, as the Earth's rotation around its axis placed Tyuratam back into the orbital plane of the Soyuz-6 mission In parallel, all the testing of the Soyuz-8 spacecraft had been completed with flying colors at Site 31 by 08:00 on the same day Soyuz-7 lifted off as planned at 13:44:42.4 Moscow Time on October 12, 1969, with Anatoly Filipchenko, Vladimir Volkov and Valery Gorbatko onboard. The ascent went perfectly and the spacecraft separated from the third stage of the launch vehicle at 13:53:33.5 Moscow Time The orbital parameters of Soyuz-7 were mostly close to specifications, however Mishin noted some concerns about a deviation of the Soyuz-6 spacecraft from the planned apogee of 220 kilometers after its own orbit correction the previous day: *as reported at the State Commission meeting on October 12, 1969, 10:30 Moscow Time (774) During the first orbit, the crew of Soyuz-7 was also able to organize a TV broadcast from orbit. (820) Mishin recorded the following communications windows between the mission control and the two spacecraft throughout October 12 and the first half of October 13 (Moscow Time): In the meantime, aboard Soyuz-6, Shonin and Kubasov watched the firing of a missile within the Svinets ("lead") experiment, which took place at 16:28 Moscow Time, (820) which coincided with the 19th orbit of their flight all sensors involved in the exercise were able to home in on the target after lightning had interrupted the tracking the cosmonauts burned from six to eight kilograms of propellant instead of the two kilograms allocated for the operation At the post-flight debriefing on October 19 Shonin remembered that all tracking attempts were quite straight forward and in addition to tracking plumes of the rocket engines cosmonauts were also able to see floodlights measurements performed by ground stations before the ships went out of range for the rest of the day showed the following orbital parameters for Soyuz-6 and Soyuz-7: Next chapter: Launch of Soyuz-8 Page editor: Alain Chabot; Last edit: October 15 Members of Soyuz-7 crew bid farewell at the pad on Oct Support this site At Site 41 in Baikonur several monuments commemorate names of those lost in the explosion of the R-16 rocket on October 24 the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (right) paid respect to the victims of the Nedelin disaster The final launch campaign for the triple Soyuz mission began in Tyuratam on September 22 with the arrival of the cosmonaut team and the support personnel Despite the worsening fall weather bringing strong winds and rain to the steppes of Kazakhstan all three Soyuz spacecraft were ready for launch by the end of the day on October 10 Previous chapter: Planning triple Soyuz mission The crew of the Soyuz-7 spacecraft inside the Descent Module (left to right): Vladislav Volkov Kamanin also had to worry about another outbreak of dysentery at the launch site several weeks earlier which still affected some workers at the now overcrowded center Kamanin had to restrict the contacts of the cosmonauts with other members of the personnel Kamanin arranged not to stop buses with cosmonauts at the multiple check points of the super-secret facility the cosmonauts trained inside their flight-ready spacecraft the subsequent technical meeting revealed 24 open issues with Vehicle No 15 (Soyuz-7) and 26 issues with Vehicle No 90 percent of the problems were being resolved and the others declared insignificant by the chief designers Despite the presence of the highest industry officials the final go ahead was left to a gathering of the Politburo then planned for September 26 a delay of the flight to as late as November was under consideration the political leadership wanted the mission to coincide with the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution Kamanin was concerned that the delay would further reduce the already dwindling warranties and resources aboard the three Soyuz vehicles which he cited as between 20 and 30 percent Kerimov called again and told Kamanin that Ustinov had informally okayed the flight marking the start of irreversible operations allowing its launch no earlier than October 9 The final training of the crew inside Soyuz-6 was set for the morning of October 1 The Politburo finally met on September 30 and officially blessed the triple flight and the State Commission then met to approve the final processing schedule at 16:00 at Site 31 in Tyuratam, where 7K-OK vehicles were undergoing preparations. The unprecedented launch of three piloted spacecraft was set for a period from October 11 to October 13 with 24-hour intervals. (820) Mishin and his engineering entourage landed in Tyuratam a technical meeting on the status of the Soyuz 7K-OK project took place at Site 31 The launch dates and times for all three upcoming launches had been re-confirmed as following: the launch campaign was expected to proceed according to the following schedule: The technical management was scheduled to gather at 17:00 local time on October 6 to review the status of the campaign. The first of the three rockets integrated with the 7K-OK spacecraft No. 14, was scheduled for rollout to the launch pad at Site 31 on October 8. (774) The next day (October 9), Vehicle No. 15 would be delivered to a nearby launch pad at Site 1 the crews and officials were scheduled to participate in a traditional meeting at Site 31 to thank military personnel preparing the missions 16) would arrive at Site 31 after the liftoff of Vehicle No Mishin recorded the following planning milestones: 14 (Soyuz-6) on October 11 at Site 31 looked as follows: the action was scheduled to shift to Site 1 where Vehicle No 15 (Soyuz-7) would be prepared for launch according to the following timeline: 16 (Soyuz-8) would be prepared for launch according to the following schedule: At 17:00 on October 7, the State Commission convened again, where all officials confirmed full readiness for flight. (774) Kamanin cited some last-minute proposal from Mishin to replace Volkov with Grechko on the crew of Soyuz-7, but the idea was apparently dropped by October 8. (820) The only issue was a scratch on the fuel tank of one of the strap-on boosters comprising the first stage of the rocket for the Soyuz-6 mission resulting from strong winds on the launch pad On the morning of October 9, the rocket with Vehicle No. 15 rolled out to the launch pad at Site 1 as planned Next chapter: Launch of Soyuz-6 Valery Kubasov and Aleksei Yeliseev next to a Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft in the vehicle assembly building in Tyuratam Soyuz-3: USSR resumes human missions after the accident Written and illustrated by Anatoly Zak | Editor: Alain Chabot a year and a half after the fatal Soyuz-1 accident the new Soviet spacecraft finally returned to flight with a pilot onboard a cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoi began manual approach to unpiloted Soyuz-2 but made crucial errors in the darkness of night trying to dock in upside down orientation and severely overusing propellant The failed manual docking after two successful automated rendezvous missions delivered many lessons for future of human space flight Previous chapter: Soyuz-1 mission Joint mission of Soyuz-2 and Soyuz-3 at a glance: Planning the Soyuz-2 and -3 dual mission At the end of May 1968, on instructions from the Kremlin, the Chief Designers Council adopted the most conservative flight program on the table: an unpiloted solo mission followed by the rendezvous and docking of two Soyuz spacecraft with only one pilot on the vehicle responsible for active docking maneuvers Choosing the Soyuz-3 pilot After the approval of the 0+1 flight scenario there was the obvious contentious question of who would pilot the "active" ship intended to dock with the automated target vehicle Head of cosmonaut training Nikolai Kamanin pushed for Georgy Beregovoi a prolific test pilot and the oldest member of the Soviet cosmonaut team Beregovoi had served under Kamanin as a pilot of the Il-2 anti-tank aircraft during World War II Preparing Soyuz-2, -3 for flight the top-secret Soviet launch site near Tyuratam (Baikonur) saw a major gathering of top officials for the dual Soyuz launch The preparation campaign had entered into the full gear with the rollout of Vehicles No 10 to Site 1 and Site 31 on October 23 and 24 Georgy Beregovoi got the final endorsement as the only pilot in the dual mission Soyuz-2 and 3 flight scenario The planned Soyuz-3 mission got a very ambitious "front-loaded" flight scenario involving a fast-track rendezvous and docking with a target spacecraft immediately after launch on the night side of the Earth and out of range of ground control stations both ships would remain in orbit for 3-4 days for a series of tests Unpiloted ship lifts off for rendezvous with Soyuz-3 While the official Soviet media remained completely silent for 24 hours launch personnel in Tyuratam and mission control specialists across the USSR were scrambling to support the launch of another Soyuz Upside down: a strange flight of Soyuz-3 spacecraft Right after entering orbit cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoi began a manual approach to the unpiloted Soyuz-2 Soyuz-2 completes its mission while Georgy Beregovoi continued his flight aboard Soyuz-3 as mission control worked hard to keep busy after a depressing start Beregovoi was completing his final full day in orbit highlighted by a live TV broadcast from orbit as investigators on the ground delivered their first preliminary verdict on the causes of the spectacular failure of the docking between Soyuz-3 and Soyuz-2 on October 26 which immediately led to political recriminations Georgy Beregovoi lands aboard Soyuz-3 Georgy Beregovoi made a safe landing in Kazakhstan aboard the descent module of the Soyuz-3 spacecraft after a four-day mission For the first time since the beginning of flight tests two years earlier and a year and the half after the death of Komarov the Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft successfully returned a cosmonaut from orbit Post-flight analysis of the Soyuz-3 mission While the Soviet press hailed the Soyuz-3 mission as a great success of the Soviet cosmonautics and the Kremlin was giving a hero's welcome to its pilot Georgy Beregovoi behind the scene engineers sifted through data to determine what exactly had gone wrong during the botched rendezvous with Soyuz-2 and what improvements to make on the spacecraft to prevent such situation in the future photos and illustrations inside this section by Anatoly Zak unless stated otherwise Post-flight analysis of the Soyuz-3 mission Previous chapter: Landing of Soyuz-3 investigators had a pretty good idea what had prevented the docking of the spacecraft with Soyuz-2 When they finally reunited with Beregovoi in Tyuratam Kamanin remembers the cosmonaut exchanging kisses with Mishin and Kerimov and "almost strangling" him in his hugs Shortly after his return to the launch site Beregovoi attended a "press-conference" for 12 selected representatives of the Soviet media and official photographers Chairman of the State Commission Kerim Kerimov opened the event with the following introduction: "The report about this mission will be issued at one point and all who are interested in its details will be able to learn them from that report The main thing that I can say for now is that the task was completed Head of TsKBEM design bureau Vasily Mishin followed up: "During the flight of Soyuz-2 and Soyuz-3, all the technology worked perfectly. I have to tell the same about the cosmonaut as well." The chorus of lower rank specialists continued that theater with endless praises for the cosmonaut, which were then published in the Soviet press hailing the successes of the mission. (848) Beregovoi then addressed the "elephant in the room" of the botched rendezvous attempt The rendezvous of the (two) spacecraft went normally from a distance of 11,000 to 200 meters The ships came to a distance of 30-40 meters and at that point I clearly saw that lights of Soyuz-2 were forming a trapezoid and I struggled (or "rushed," according to Chertok) to drive them into a single line Chertok then quoted Beregovoi as saying that the trapezoid (formed by navigation lights) on Soyuz-2 appeared to be expanding in size, instead of folding, as he maneuvered Soyuz-3. Both Mishin and Chertok also quoted the cosmonaut as admitting that he had not realized right away that he had to bank the spacecraft 180 degrees for the correct approach to Soyuz-2. (774) I realized that the docking would not take place and decided to hang on and wait for dawn (while station-keeping relative to the target spacecraft) (I) saw the Soyuz-2 ship (between) 30 and 40 meters away The courses of the ships were off by 30 degrees the misalignment in the course had only increased (I) decided to consult with the command center during the overflight of the USSR and to image the Soyuz-2 spacecraft When I unbuckled and was reaching for a photo-camera (in the bag), I touched the control handle either with a seatbelt or with my feet. I only noticed that the handle was in the position of propellant expenditure, when more than 30 kilograms had already been spent. (820) the accidental firing of thrusters apparently caused the tumbling of the spacecraft Beregovoi complained that even without an accidental touching the control handle of the motion control system was too sensitive to the slightest movement making it difficult not to overuse propellant Chertok remembers Beregovoi estimating that at the beginning of the station-keeping process with Soyuz-2 the pressure indicator of the attitude control system was showing 160 atmospheres and that he had accidentally wasted around 30 atmospheres He suggested that the hand controller should be re-designed to give it some level of non-responsiveness and resistance at the start of its motion by a pilot. (774, 466) Beregovoi described several other factors which contributed to his unfortunate situation During the first day of the flight, when not buckled up, there was a feeling of the head being pushed back. With fast movement of the head, there were unpleasant feelings even when strapped on. In the final days, I had no such feelings. (820) Beregovoi provided many other comments about his experience and made a number of other suggestions for the improvements of the spacecraft: Beregovoi also criticized the onboard photo and movie camera as well as the tape recorder accompanied by Kamanin and other officials departed Tyuratam for Moscow aboard an Ilyushin-18 aircraft they were met with a typical gloomy and cold November weather but it did not prevent the Soviet officials from organizing a full-blown red-carpet ceremony on the tarmac of the airport matching the arrival of Gagarin after his historic flight aboard Vostok in April 1961 Beregovoi was greeted by the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev The ceremony at the airport was followed with a limousine ride to Moscow and a reception in the Kremlin The Soviet leaders also bestowed Beregovoi with all the usual honors reserved for pioneering cosmonauts The cosmonaut also got another Order of Lenin which was actually the first for any flown cosmonaut Beregovoi, accompanied by Kamanin, also gave a carefully choreographed and rehearsed TV interview. Once again, everything was done to hide any sign of problems in orbit, let alone the notion of a botched flight. (848) By his own admission, Kamanin urged Beregovoi not to take the blame for the problems in flight. Beregovoi apparently took that advice, at least during his informal technical meeting with the engineering management of the TsKBEM design bureau, among them Mishin, Feoktistov, Chertok Although by that time engineers had already compiled a fairly good picture of the docking fiasco at least as remembered by one leading engineer behind the Soyuz spacecraft Valentin Babkov Beregovoi made some rather bizarre and hilarious arguments even though they echoed his previous complaints "I have big questions toward for the comrades responsible for the design of the flight control system," Beregovoi reportedly said "What kind of flight control handle is that I am a battlefield pilot and know how important it is to have a feel for your controller It is as if a chauffeur driving the Volga (the biggest Soviet sedan) was required to drive a toy pedal car with a toy steering wheel why was there so little peroxide (attitude control propellant) I would have certainly completed this docking!" To add an insult to injury, Beregovoi presented Mishin with a TV camera, which he had ripped off the wall of the Habitation Module clearly by applying a great deal of force based on the appearance of the damaged connection cables which could potentially cause a short circuit aboard the spacecraft Beregovoi had kept the camera on his lap during the reentry and landing to the horror of dynamics specialists who only then realized that the bulky device could have shifted the center of mass of the capsule with catastrophic results Perhaps admitting his awkward situation, Beregovoi tried to end the meeting on a humble note: "I, of course, understand, that I am the oldest and it is necessary to clear the road for the young. But I would like to thank all those who gave me an opportunity to make a space flight... Maybe this is because I have eyebrows as those of Brezhnev (then Soviet leader). (There were many fables within the industry about Beregovoi's resemblance to Brezhnev) (848) Despite a very critical attitude toward Beregovoi's performance from Bobkov Mishin wrote down many suggestions from the hapless cosmonaut during the November 16 meeting Mishin clearly considered these notes important enough to refer the list of issues to his key associates Bushuev Beregovoi comments focused on the contamination of the ship's windows and other obstructions to observations as well as flight control issues and problems during ascent and reentry Window contamination and other visibility issues: The investigation into the failed docking between Soyuz-2 and -3 established without much doubt that the entire automated rendezvous process had worked as planned however by the time Beregovoi switched to manual control there had been some minor mismatch in the position of two ships along the roll axis Beregovoi banked the spacecraft so much that it ended up upside down relative to the main axis of its target and/or confused by the position of lights on the target ship Beregovoi pressed ahead with the rendezvous the automated stabilization system on Soyuz-2 detected the error and correctly commanded the ship to yaw in order to avoid docking in the wrong orientation (That's what Beregovoi clearly observed as a "deviation" from the correct course.) Beregovoi then performed a propellant-consuming flyaround of Soyuz-2 and rushed to another rendezvous attempt Specialists checked and ruled out the possibility that the navigation lights on the Soyuz-2 could have been erroneously installed in wrong positions A number of factors could have contributed to Beregovoi's disorientation during docking: limited visibility the lack of communications with mission control The Volga simulator used to train Soyuz pilots was also cited as inadequate for rendezvous practice Beregovoi (who happened to be the oldest member of the cosmonaut team) was known to underperform The training records showed that Beregovoi had consistently earned lower test scores than Vladimir Shatalov and Boris Volynov During the "integrated" (final) training around a month before the flight, Beregovoi scored "3", while Shatalov and Volynov got solid "5's". During the second such session, instructors "pulled" Beregovoi's score to "4", while Volynov and Shatalov again got their "fives." Only during the final theoretical exam, did Beregovoi finally score "5". (848) All these details became publicly known only in the 1990s Beregovoi would never be allowed to pilot a spacecraft again but he would continue working at the Cosmonaut Training Center for many years Next chapter: Zond-6: the USSR presses ahead with circumlunar spacecraft test Page editor: Alain Chabot; Last edit: November 6 Beregovoi walks on the red carpet at Vnukovo airport on Nov after returning Moscow from the Soyuz-3 mission At the tarmac of Vnukovo airport in Moscow Beregovoi reports to the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev the successful completion of the Soyuz-3 flight Beregovoi greets well-wishers during his triumphant return to Moscow Beregovoi (left) and Kamanin during a press-conference after the completion of the Soyuz-3 flight preparations of the first Soyuz mission reached the point of no return with crews officially confirmed and the hardware undergoing final checks Previous chapter: Preparing the Soyuz-1 mission Mishin, Komarov, Feoktistov, Gagarin and Kerimov walk toward the rocket at Site 1 in Tyuratam in early hours of April 23 the payload section containing Soyuz-1 (7K-OK No 4) arrived at Site 2 and was integrated with its RN 03 launch vehicle complicated by an electric discharge onto the body of the vehicle during the lowering of a cosmonaut chair in its position who had both passed away in the previous two years The commission reconvened at 20:00 and formally confirmed the launch time as formally proposed for flight by Kamanin: all the officials confirmed the readiness of their respective systems for flight Kirillov again reported on the status of testing at the launch site Gagarin's assignment to the flight even as a backup raised some eyebrows Smirnov warned space officials that due to the critical importance of Gagarin for the Soviet propaganda a special permission of the Politburo would be needed to let the world's first cosmonaut to fly again Kamanin apparently convinced Ustinov that if Gagarin wanted a rather prestigious position as the head of the cosmonaut corps he had to be actively involved in training because he had no illusions about letting Gagarin into the actual flight Gagarin was also a member of the flight control group which was supposed to depart the launch site for Crimea a day before Soyuz-1 would lift off Mishin instructed Chertok and Raushenbakh to fly to the mission control center as scheduled promising to bring Gagarin along after the liftoff April 21: First manned Soyuz arrives at launch pad the launch vehicle with Soyuz-1 (Vehicle No 4) rolled out from the vehicle assembly building at Site 2 to the launch pad at Site 1 The integrated tests began on the launch pad at 13:00 the testing had to be repeated at 20:00 in the evening 5 was enclosed into its payload fairing and entered final operations In the meantime, Chertok and a number of other space officials flew to the NIP-16 ground control station in Crimea which would be the main nerve center of the mission April 22: Soyuz crews visit their launch pad On April 22, 1967, at 9:00, the cosmonauts were brought from their training area at Site 17 to a hotel at the processing area at Site 2 just few hundred meters away from the vehicle processing building Mishin reviewed telemetry tapes with data of integrated tests of the launch vehicle and the spacecraft At 11:00, the launch personnel, the Soyuz crews and other officials held a meeting in the shadow of the Soyuz launch vehicle erected on the launch pad at Site 1 as well as rank and file military personnel assured the cosmonauts that they could rely on the hardware Komarov and Bykovsky then thanked the launch personnel some of which were published during the Soviet period giving independent analysts early evidence that along with Komarov a number of other cosmonauts were ready to fly Mishin met cosmonauts for another review of the upcoming flight Back in Evpatoria, Crimea, personnel and officials at NIP-16 control center spent the day rehearsing operations during the upcoming flight which started in the middle of a previous day for many of the officials involved in the launch the State Commission gathered for the "launch meeting" starting at 23:30 Moscow Time Everything was declared ready for flight and the fueling of the launch vehicle was given go ahead The operation was completed by 03:00 in the morning of April 23 Komarov and Gagarin arrived to the pad by bus and they both rode an elevator of the access gantry to the top of the rocket. As described by Yaroslav Golovanov, Komarov was wearing gray pants and blue jacket. (246) The two cosmonauts exchanged "see you soon," and Gagarin watched as the entry hatch into Soyuz-1 was sealed behind Komarov Gagarin then went to the firing bunker where he and Nikolaev were in contact with Komarov via radio during the final preparations for liftoff Next chapter: Soyuz-1 lifts off The article and illustrations by Anatoly Zak Komarov (left), Gagarin (center), Bykovsky (right) are arriving at Site 1 in Tyuratam for the meeting with the launch personnel on April 22 Ceremony on the launch pad at Site 1 in Tyuratam on April 22 Head of launch personnel Anatoly Kirillov Soyuz crew a successful flight The Soyuz (11A511) rocket on the launch pad in Tyuratam Komarov (left) and Gagarin walk toward the Soyuz-1 spacecraft Site update log About this site About the author SUPPORT THIS SITE! Vostok project Vostok-1K No. 1 Vostok-1K No. 5 Vostok-1K No. 6 Vostok-3A No.1 Vostok-3A No. 2 Gagarin's flight Vostok-2 mission Vostok-5 and 6 Vostok launcher The Vostok ejection seat fitted with the Pressurized Animal Cabin which returned Belka and Strelka back to Earth A taxidermist portrayal of Strelka is in the background Notable are indentations on the aft bulkhead of the ejection seat which was integrated with the ejection seat and fitted inside Vostok's Descent Module the GKZh container also carried a large botanical set with various plants The latter were apparently intended to please the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev famously bought into the idea of the miraculous properties of corn and its ability to revolutionize the lagging Soviet agriculture The experiment probably meant to test the influence of space radiation on the reproductive properties of corn and other grains There were also payloads onboard for micro-biological immunology and other life-science experiments Continuing the scientific program of the first experimental satellites, Vostok also carried a "space weather" experiment developed by a team of physicists led by Sergei Vernov. The payload's special photo-sensitive plates were designed to capture particles of space rays and then process the resulting images onboard. There were also experiments to measure UV and X-ray radiation from the Sun. (466) However, as in the previous attempt, the main goal of the mission was to perform a safe return of the Descent Module after two or three days in orbit. (509) Following reentry the capsule was expected to deploy its PS-6415-59 parachute system at an altitude of around eight kilometers the cover of the Descent Module would be jettisoned and the container with the animals would be ejected to land under its own parachute The Soviet effort to fly dogs in support of the Vostok project started in December 1959. It followed a similar program from the early 1950s which supplied dogs for sub-orbital flights on research rockets and for the infamous mission of the second Soviet satellite in November 1957 A veteran of the program Lyudmila Radkevich who worked at the Aviation Medicine Institute she crisscrossed Moscow suburbs in a car driven by a conscript soldier Around 60 dogs aged between 1.5 and three years and having a mass of around five or six kilograms each were picked at the start of the program but only about a dozen were actually trained for orbital flights because they required a much simpler design of the waste-disposal system which was absent on short-duration ballistic flights Aboard the spacecraft, dogs would be fitted with cardiovascular, blood pressure, heartbeat, temperature and motion sensors with a total mass between 200 and 280 grams. The toilet interface, clothing and fixating devices took another 450 grams for each animal. Counting the actual mass of the 5.8-kilogram dog, the fully equipped animal had a mass of between 6.5 and 7 kilograms. (923) The installation of some sensors required surgery but they would be removed if dogs survived their journey The leading aviation medicine specialist Oleg Gazenko who was one of the pioneers of Soviet space medicine documented the preparation for the first two launches of Vostok spacecraft with dogs aboard starting shortly before his team's arrival to the Tyuratam launch site on July 12 Gazenko listed six dogs which were apparently trained in three pairs and could be used as backup "crews" to each other After the loss of Lisichka and Chaika on July 28 Gazenko's notes indicated that Silva and Vilna became prime candidates for the next launch attempt Gazenko recorded the vital signs of Silva on the morning of July 30 – temperature: 38.1 degrees pulse: 88 beats per minute: breath - 24 times per minute Vilna was also reported to be in good shape Both dogs were placed into their container for a rehearsal of the flight Gazenko's team tried the operation of the Seliger cameras recording the behavior of the dogs inside the capsule two TV cameras equipped with lighting and mirrors were installed to view Belka at a straight angle Along with live transmission at low resolution the Seliger cameras also recorded higher quality video on film for the post-landing processing The dogs were dressed in red and green costumes Vilna (whose name could be interpreted in Russian as a reference to the city of Vilnius in Lithuania and to independent Ukraine) was renamed into the politically acceptable Belka (Gazenko's records also indicate that at one point Vilna was called Vega and on August 15 he names her Belochka which is a term of endearment version of Belka Gazenko also appear to be defaulting back to the name Vilna in his subsequent notes even after the launch of the dogs.) In the meantime, Silva, whose name also had western connotations and was deemed unacceptable as the launch date neared, was identified as Kaplya (droplet) for a short period of time around August 15, until officials settled on the name Strelka (little arrow). (923) A launch vehicle with a Vostok spacecraft prototype is being fueled for liftoff in the Summer of 1960 The work with the Vostok 1K No. 2 spacecraft at the processing building at Site 2 in Tyuratam lasted 12 days. On August 16, 1960, the 8K72K rocket with the spacecraft was rolled out to the launch pad at Site 1 with the liftoff planned for the next day Gazenko's team dressed his dogs and by 11 p.m. placed them into the container where they had to spend the night In the meantime, during tests of the rocket on the pad, a problem was found in the main oxygen valve and the liftoff had to be postponed. A replacement valve had to be delivered to the launch site on an aircraft from Kuibyshev (now Samara), where the R-7 rocket series were built requiring postponing the mission until August 19 After the replacement of the valve and multiple checks, the vehicle was ready for launch. (466) In preparation for the second launch attempt on August 19, the GKZh container with the dogs was re-installed into the spacecraft around 5:30 a.m. local time or around eight hours before the planned liftoff. Medics were concerned about the health of the dogs on the hot launch pad, but fortunately there was some reprieve in the weather. (923) The thermal cover was removed from the rocket between 11:45 and 12:15 local time The 8K72K No. L1-12 rocket carrying the 1K No. 2 spacecraft lifted off on August 19, 1960, at 11:44:06.8 Moscow Time. (51) The specialists and officials who crowded into a small room of the operational Group T (telemetry) at Site 2 in Tyuratam waited anxiously for the confirmation from the Soviet Far East that the spacecraft had reached orbit the NIP-4 ground station in Yeniseisk and then another site on the Kamchatka Peninsula reported that the Vostok had separated from the upper stage and was indeed circling the Earth According to a secret telegram to the Central Committee of the Communist Party sent by space program officials on August 19, the spacecraft entered a near-circular orbit with an altitude of 320 kilometers. Interestingly, the document misidentified Strelka as Strela, probably in the confusion caused by the repeated re-naming of the dogs. (509) As the night fell in Tyuratam and the spacecraft re-appeared within range of the center's antennas, Chertok and other officials jammed into the TV-receiving station. According to Gazenko, the communication window opened at 22:45 (local time) during the seventh orbit of the mission. (923) Despite the relatively low resolution of the onboard camera viewers on the ground saw perfectly on live TV as the dogs began barking Ground stations also confirmed that all the equipment aboard the spacecraft was working well Specialists from Chertok's Group T and members of the State Commission stayed up until 2 a.m monitoring the situation aboard the spacecraft As Chertok and his colleagues were leaving the ground station in the early hours of August 20, the American Echo-1A satellite, essentially a 30-meter inflatable sphere intended for experiments with reflections of radio signals was making an easily observable pass in the sky over Tyuratam Still excited about the latest TV views from orbit the Soviet engineers joked about their dogs barking at the American satellite "Maybe they pissed on it too," Chertok remembered one of them saying laughingly However, during breakfast the next morning (August 20), Korolev was called to a telephone and informed that telemetry specialists suspected an anomaly in the operation of the infra-red attitude control system aboard the spacecraft, similar to the failure during the first Vostok mission According to Konstantin Feoktistov, chief Vostok developer, the problem with the infra-read attitude control system was discovered in telemetry records after the first couple of orbits of the mission. (196) Chertok told Korolev that it was a good opportunity to test the operation of the backup attitude control system (that relied on the position of the Sun for reference) but in response he got a grim look on Korolev's face The Chief Designer demanded to immediately call his deputy Konstantin Bushuev and the developer of the flight control systems Mikhail Ryazansky who were at the NII-4 military research institute in Bolshevo which at the time served as the main communications and calculations center for the Soviet space program let them have (their) ballistic people to prepare the descent sequence," Korolev said (It appears that the flight was cut short from its maximum possible duration perhaps to minimize the probability of additional failures in the flight control system.) The consultations with NII-4 resumed at 9:30 a.m. on August 20 and the decision was made to conduct the landing using a backup solar orientation system, instead of the infra-red sensor system. (51) On the morning of August 20, the Pravda newspaper carried an official statement from the TASS news agency identifying the ongoing mission as the Second Soviet Spacecraft-Satellite (Korabl-Sputnik). The announcement disclosed that the launch continued the program started with the mission in May 1960 and re-confirmed that the flights aimed to prepare human missions in space the Soviet ground stations detected the frequency of the Signal beacon indicating that the TDU braking system had worked The loss of signal was expected at 10:57 Moscow Time and it would confirm that the separated Descent Module had reentered the atmosphere and the searing heat of plasma surrounding the capsule had melted the antennas When the time came for the signal disappearance, the officials in Tyuratam had a few moments of anxiety because antennas of the Signal-Yupiter tracking system at the IP-1 station in Tyuratam were still hearing the signal, before it finally weakened and disappeared to a huge sigh of relief on the ground. (51) radio monitors were waiting for the signals from the Peleng transmitter whose wire antennas were embedded in the parachute lines and would confirm that the capsule had deployed its parachute system came to Tyuratam over the phone at 11:04 Moscow Time P-2 and P-3 commands had all been registered meaning that other critical descent milestones including the ejection of the dog container had taken place as planned The container was confirmed ejecting at an altitude of around 7 kilometers and a speed of around 6 meters per second The landing of Vostok 1K No 2 spacecraft took place at 11:07 Moscow Time on August 20, 1960, after one day, two hour and 23-minute flight, marking the first return of a Soviet spacecraft from orbit and the world's first two-way trip of animals into orbit. (922) The Soviet anti-aircraft and security services which had been mobilized for tracking operations then reported that the landing had taken place in the Southern Urals within a triangle formed by the towns of Orsk Kustanai and Amangeldy with a deviation of just 10 kilometers from the projected point Pekin deployed at the Orsk airport then departed aboard an aircraft toward the landing zone The aircraft soon located the capsule and a group of search specialists parachuted to the site while the pilot called for helicopter support At the landing site, parachutists then radioed to the pilot of the aircraft that the Descent Module, the GKZh container and the dogs inside were all in good shape. (463) As the pilot relayed the news to mission control cheers erupted at the ground station in Tyuratam Korolev and Nedelin then formed a team of specialists, including spacecraft assembly technicians and doctors, to be dispatched to the landing site, while Korolev ordered his other associates to return to Moscow as soon as possible. (466) After search specialists unsealed the biological container at the landing site they let their lucky dogs to run around the steppe while technicians were busy with the hardware the dogs readily sprung back for the trip home the successful return of Belka and Strelka triggered a wave of public celebrations and public events the official announcement about the landing had to be worked out The morning after their return from Tyuratam the members of the State Commission gathered at Moscow mansion of its chairman Marshall Nedelin While the members debated the text of the post-landing communique Oleg Gazenko and Lyudmila Radkevich brought Belka and Strelka to a hastily prepared press-conference at the TASS news agency building at Tsvetnoi Boulevard in Moscow (The two dogs apparently started a fight on the way to the event) the invited press included western photographers to the consternation of the commission members who knew that foreign publications unbound by censorship and bureaucracy would now certainly beat Soviet newspapers with the first pictures of space dogs Nedelin's assistants rushed to the telephones calling the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and demanding to "stop the improvisations," but to no avail the official TASS news agency broadcast the event over the radio The State Commission then decided to preempt the next-morning newspapers with a TV broadcast During evening news at 9:30, Chertok already sitting at home, watched Colonel Gazenko, dressed in civilian dress, and Radkevich parading Belka and Strelka on TV. (466) On August 23, the Pravda newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, carried the triumphant TASS report on the results of the mission. (509) 28 out of the 40 mice which were onboard the spacecraft died in orbit With their risky mission and the world-wide fame behind them Belka and Strelka reportedly lived happily ever after at the aviation medicine institute and both had healthy puppies Strelka had three female and two male puppies and the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave one of them the dog was actually a female and she was called Pushinka.) Belka and Strelka died of natural causes at the Moscow zoo many years after their flight Next chapter: Vostok-1K No. 5 Page editor: Alain Chabot; Last edit: August 19 Belka and Strelka inside the GKZh container A Seliger TV camera similar to the one which was likely installed on early Vostok spacecraft TV images received on the ground during the mission of Korabl-Sputnik-2 Post-landing processing of the GKZh container Official photos of Belka and Strelka and their human handlers released by the Soviet press Colonel Oleg Gazenko shows Belka and Strelka to journalists after the flight Like their much less fortunate predecessor Laika Belka and Strelka appeared in numerous Soviet visuals The two dogs continued to be popular in the post-Soviet Russia They also appeared on coins and even got their own monument Stamp dedicated to the flight of the Second Soviet "Korabl-Sputnik Vostok project On June 4, at 10 a.m., the State Commission started a meeting that formally approved Bykovsky and Tereshkova to fly Vostok-5 and Vostok-6 respectively. Volynov, Ponomareva and Solovyova were confirmed as backups. (466) Previous chapter: Preparations for Vostok-5/ -6 launch campaign Tereshkova had two backups "due to the peculiarity of the female organism." It is tempting to speculate that not having a period by the time of the launch was a factor in the very late decision to name the pilot of Vostok-6 a rumored synchronization of menstrual cycles among all female pilots would leave officials without much choice beyond postponing the launch the weather forecast showed the possibility of wind gusts reaching 15-20 meters per second near the ground crossing the 15-meter-per-second safety limit for both the rollout and the liftoff scheduled for June 7 the State Commission gathered again for a ceremonial meeting complete with prepared speeches by Bykovsky and Tereshkova before a few cameras of the Soviet "media" sanctioned to access the launch site It was announced that a male pilot would fly for eight days and a female for three On June 5, as the rollout of the rocket to the launch pad and the launch itself had to be put off for 24 hours by strong winds, the cosmonauts listened to last instructions from engineers and Air Force superiors. Kamanin insisted cosmonauts used coded messages in open communications with ground control when it came to the status of their health or their spacecraft unanimously supported this idea," Kamanin wrote "everything is great" -- meant the mission can continue "everything is good" -- meant some doubts or problems and "everything is satisfactory" -- meant a call to abort the mission how cosmonauts would describe their problems to ground control beyond these generalities It was cloudy and very windy in Baikonur with temperatures staying 25 degrees C during the day and falling to 15 degrees at night the rollout of the rocket was prepared again however this time it was delayed due to a failure of the command radio channel The problem required three or four days to be fixed the State Commission reviewed the issue with KRL Another "problem" that was suddenly brought up before the commission was whether to publicly announce Tereshkova as an Air Force officer Opinions split and after the meeting Kamanin "escalated" the issue to the Central Committee in Moscow the commission agreed to launch the second Vostok two days after the first However officials still considered the option of flying Vostok-5 for five days then launching Vostok-6 and landing them simultaneously three days later Tereshkova had a chance to sit inside her flight-ready capsule The rocket with Vostok-5 was finally rolled out to the launch pad on the morning of June 9 Korolev supervised integrated tests of the vehicle on the launch pad At noon on June 10, Bykovsky made the traditional trip to the launch pad to meet the personnel preparing his rocket. After the meeting, Korolev took an elevator to the entrance to Vostok along with Marshall Krylov. He then took a second ride to the top of the rocket, this time with Bykovsky, and let the cosmonaut sit in the capsule. (574) By the end of June 10, everything was "go" for launch, however late that evening, Keldysh called from Moscow and asked the launch to be postponed due to the danger of an increased solar radiation. Korolev immediately summoned Bushuev and Chertok to his cottage at Site 2 and ordered them to fly to Moscow in the morning and discuss the situation with Keldysh As it turned out, Keldysh was stuck in Moscow when he had received a warning from Andrei Severny, the director of the Crimean Observatory, forecasting a sharp increase in solar activity. Powerful solar flares had the potential to disrupt communications and bring dangerous radiation to the Earth's vicinity, scientists claimed. (466) According to Kamanin, Severny had called Keldysh around 13:00 on June 10, and said that the Sun had shown the first signs of increased activity as early as June 8. Kamanin himself learned about the latest delay, from the Chairman of the State Commission at 22:30 local time. (574) Chertok and Bushuev arrived at the offices of the President of the Academy of Sciences on Leninsky Prospect to join the commission investigating the situation They soon found out from Sergei Vernov that scientists had rather vague ideas about the exact situation but according to observations from Severny the level of radiation in space could increase by hundreds of times Korolev, obviously irritated by this unexpected obstacle, called his associates from Tyuratam and told them that the launch had been re-scheduled for June 12 and that he held Bushuev and Chertok personally responsible for "order on the Sun." He directed both engineers to stay at the Academy all day and night and get a "go" for launch from Keldysh by any means Not expecting any new data on the Sun's activity until June 12 During June 11, in addition to numerous inquires from various officials and from the launch site, Keldysh also got a call on the Kremlin phone line. Frol Kozlov, (undoubtedly prompted either by Khrushchev or Korolev) was now also interested in the situation. An emotional Keldysh responded that he had no people capable of bringing the Sun to order. (466) bad weather finally cleared and top space officials and cosmonauts enjoyed swimming and sunbathing on the shores of the Syr-Darya River Valentina Tereshkova and Andriyan Nikolaev, pilot of Vostok-3, enjoy boating on the Syr-Darya River near Tyuratam during the unexpected break in the Vostok-5 and Vostok-6 launch campaign in June 1963 "Problems" with the Sun continued during June 12. During most of the day Korolev and Tyulin were on the phone with Keldysh trying to convince him to give the green light to launch on June 13. (574) By the end of the day most officials finally concluded that even under the worst circumstances Vostok's metal skin and thermal layers would provide enough of a safety margin for the pilots Deputy Healthcare Minister Avetik Burnazyan finally convinced Keldysh to give the "go" to the mission Moscow Time (midnight at the launch site) Keldysh woke up Korolev and Tyulin and informed them that the commission was writing a permission to launch on June 14 In response, Korolev demanded Bushuev and Chertok to sign the document, send it by telegram to the launch site and to report there themselves with the original. Korolev also asked Chertok to bring Keldysh along as a "solar hostage." However due to delays at the Moscow airport, the group would not arrive until after Bykovsky's launch. (466) On the morning of June 13, launch preparations were finally back on track. At 7 p.m. Bykovsky and Volynov went through final medical checks. As their predecessors, they came to small cottages at Site 2 to spend their last night there before launch Next chapter: Vostok-5 launch Page editor: Alain Chabot; Last edit: June 30 Korolev, Tereshkova and Gagarin in a cottage at Site 2 in Tyuratam during the Vostok-6 launch campaign A meeting of the State Commission on June 4 officially confirming Valery Bykovsky and Valentina Tereshkova as pilots of Vostok-5 and Vostok-6 spacecraft the head of Crimean Observatory Andrei Severny delivered a forecast for high solar radiation that could jeopardize Vostok missions Cosmonauts and space officials boating on the Syr-Darya River near Tyuratam during an unexpected break before launches of Vostok-5 and Vostok-6 spacecraft in June 1963 Bykovsky and Gagarin in cottage at Site 2 on the eve of Vostok-5 launch on June 14 Unpiloted ship lifts off in advance of the historic Soyuz-3 rendezvous mission Previous chapter: Flight scenario for the Soyuz-2, -3 mission the pilot of the "active" Soyuz spacecraft had to maneuver his vehicle so that navigation lights below the target Soyuz vehicle looked perfectly aligned in the pilot's periscope Any misalignment of the two spacecraft would shift the lights' position in the viewfinder The final pre-launch meeting of the State Commission opened at around 10 in the morning, local time, on October 25 and everything was declared ready for flight. The first ship in the dual flight (Vehicle No. 11) lifted off on October 25, 1968, at 12:00 Moscow Time (14:00 local). (774) The telemetry showed that all the antennas and solar panels had been successfully deployed and that the rocket had inserted the spacecraft into orbit with a very high degree of accuracy. (466) During the fourth orbit (before the spacecraft left the communications range) mission control uplinked commands to the spacecraft for a first orbit correction which was to be initiated at 18:08:40 Moscow Time The ship's engine was programmed to deliver 8.4 meters per second in velocity change and apparently lowered its orbit The vehicle was still guaranteed to remain in orbit for at least 49 revolutions Based on measurements from the Soviet ground stations throughout the day Soyuz-2 had the following orbital parameters which were crucial for the upcoming intercept: located at NII-4 military institute in Bolshevo the Applied Mathematics Institute in Moscow and the TsKBEM design bureau in Podlipki worked feverishly to determine the exact launch time for the second spacecraft because the launch personnel in Tyuratam needed this information at least two hours before the actual liftoff of Vehicle No The launch personnel had a launch "window" which should not exceed one second in order for the newly launched interceptor vehicle to end up no farther than 20 kilometers from its target and to initiate an immediate short-range rendezvous process In case the liftoff would take place beyond the super-tight launch window located downrange from Tyuratam in Sary Shagan was instructed to be on stand-by to send a command to the ship to cancel the short-range rendezvous mode mission control would have to quickly access the resulting orbital parameters to have a chance to command a long-range rendezvous sequence via NIP-15 ground station in Ussuriisk in the Soviet Far East before the ships disappeared beyond the horizon over the Pacific Specialists in Tyuratam planned to relay the exact liftoff time for Vehicle No. 10 with an accuracy of one 10th of a second to the main control center at the NIP-16 ground station in Yevpatoria no later than three minutes after the actual event In any case, personnel of the Soviet ground control network spread across multiple time zones and communications services that supported them had to work in a perfectly choreographed fashion, while top flight control officials in Crimea had only minutes, if not seconds, to relay crucial decisions to ground stations. (466) Next chapter: Soyuz-3 lifts off Page editor: Alain Chabot; Last edit: October 28 A Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft rolls out to the launch pad Reeling from the disastrous mission of Soyuz-1, Soviet engineers at the TsKBEM design bureau began the return-to-flight efforts with an attempt to launch an unmanned version of the 7K-L1 circumlunar spacecraft to test the first fully operational version of the vehicle. It would be also the sixth launch for the UR-500 rocket and the third launch for its UR-500K variant developed specifically for human missions around the Moon Previous chapter: Soyuz-1 (52) 4L for the L1 circumlunar program apparently began at the beginning of 1967 after delays with supplies of components for the mission had prevented the beginning of the work on December 20 the delivery of critical avionics for Vehicle No 4L from NIIAP in Moscow was scheduled for Jan However TsKBEM's sub-contractors were still late with various components which pushed the preparations of Vehicle No Because Vehicle No. 4L would be the first L1 mission intended to return to Earth, the search and rescue services, PSK, also had to be ready, especially in case of the landing at sea. Also, in the wake of a launch accident in December the interfaces between the flight control system in the spacecraft had to be changed to account for newly discovered problems His later notes quoting his colleagues indicated that all the components for the 7K-L1 Vehicle No 4L had been delivered for assembly at the TsKBEM design bureau on April 10 Mishin had the following launch schedule for the UR-500K-L1 project in his notes: Vehicles No. 8L, 9L and 10L were expected to fly around the Moon with crews onboard. That schedule apparently held only for a few days. On May 5, engineers began testing the fully assembled Vehicle No. 4 at KIS in Podlipki near Moscow. However on the same day, Mishin prepared an updated launch schedule for the 7K-L1 project to be presented at the meeting of the Chief Designers Council on the Soviet circumlunar project If the first four flights went as scheduled, the fifth vehicle (No. 8L) could carry the first pair of cosmonauts around the Moon, as early as August but no later than November 7, 1967, the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. This timeline looked wildly optimistic, especially after the Soyuz-1 disaster. To fulfill it, Mishin needed two teams of test engineers and two processing facilities for the L1 spacecraft at KIS To provide tracking and communications for the fully operational L1 spacecraft Mishin planned to deploy the Ilichevsk (PTK NII-4) tracking ship in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cuba beginning with mission No the development of the DRK deep-space communications system for the L1 project still lagged behind schedule On May 22, Minister Sergei Afanasiev directed Mishin to schedule a Chief Designers Council meeting for the 7K-OK and 7K-L1 projects As of May 23, Mishin planned a number of tests to support the L1 project: one descent module prototype designated E3091 would be dropped from an aircraft to test a new parachute container redesigned in the wake of the Soyuz-1 accident. Vehicles E3090 No. 1 and No. 2 would be used to test the Emergency Escape System the 4L and 5L vehicles were expected to be equipped with new parachute containers the State Commission overseeing the launch of Vehicle No Mishin recorded Evgeny Shabarov's report that test activations of the L1's telemetry systems had revealed 24 issues There were the usual problems with the deep-space communications network and issues with solar and star-based attitude-control sensors Mishin even planned to call a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Sergei Zverev to use his influence to expedite the delivery of replacement sensors for Vehicles No The State Commission meeting on May 31 also reviewed the status of assembly of the follow-on L1 vehicles No specialists working at KIS finally completed powering-up on Vehicle No With all the time required for the post-Soyuz-1 recovery Mishin apparently had another major review of the L1 project on June 16 The Head of the State Commission Georgy Tyulin and key flight-control specialists Nikolai Pilyugin and Mikhail Ryzansky were apparently present including many errors in the installation of the onboard cable lines on the spacecraft and various issues with integration of avionics Mishin's deputy for testing Evgeny Shabarov reported that only three out of 13 integrated tests had been conducted at the time By then (June 16), the launch schedule looked as following: The documents for flight testing covering missions from 4L to 8L were also being prepared 4L spacecraft still remained at the Control and Checkout Station Mishin noted the delivery of the final set of hardware for Vehicle No The new schedule seemingly approved by Mishin aimed for the shipment of the spacecraft to the launch site by July 15 TsKBEM was working on the second test facility for the L1 spacecraft inside KIS and preparing an action plan for upgrades to the launch and processing facilities needed for manned missions of the L1 vehicles beginning with Vehicle No Yevgeny Shabarov reported that TsKBEM had been working on the delivery of the operational documentation for the L1 spacecraft in time for the final round of testing at the launch site The documents were updated to take into account the latest results of the tests at KIS who oversaw the development of the flight control system the main problems during the assembly of Vehicle No 4L dealt with computer failures during autonomous tests several areas vulnerable to interference were discovered during integrated tests at KIS one channel of the main BTsVM computer failed and had to be replaced Pilyugin cleared the computer for further operations the various missions in the L1 project had the following status: Mishin landed at the Tyuratam launch site on Sept. 13, 1967, at 15:10 Moscow Time for the first time since the disastrous mission of Soyuz-1 the previous April. In less than an hour, he already was at the processing facility at Site 31 4L was undergoing final preparations for launch Although most problems had now been resolved the personnel apparently had to deal with some depressurization in the spacecraft 4L was transported to another processing building for integration with the launch vehicle In parallel with the work on the L1 project, TsKBEM engineers had to deal with a multitude of other projects in Tyuratam, first of all, various issues with the massive infrastructure development for the L3 project and ongoing processing of Soyuz 7K-OK No 6 spacecraft for an upcoming unmanned joint mission The State Commission overseeing the launch of Vehicle No A leading test specialist Viktor Melnikov reported that the entire launch campaign had taken 71 days with an eight-hours-a-day and six-days-a-week work schedule a total of 12 issues had been reported during the pre-launch processing eight of which were already closed and four were declared acceptable for the flight There were still some issues remaining with ground control but the spacecraft was declared ready for the mission following the two dress rehearsals for flight controllers planned for September 22 and 24 To track the mission during the flight over the Western Hemisphere the Vladimir Komarov floating command and control ship was stationed in the port of Havana Mishin apparently asked Shabarov whether the launch could take place on Sept despite problems with narrow-angle antennas which could require a delay until September 28 He also contacted his deputy Igor Yurasov about the replacement of the fairing on the parachute container The flight program of the 7K-L1 Vehicle No. 4 called for a single orbit around the Earth followed by the firing of the Block D's engine for an injection into a lunar flyby trajectory The vehicle would then travel around the Moon and return back to Earth Mishin wrote a note about his discussion with G.I Degtyarenko about the clarification of landing sites with the Soviet Navy apparently in reaction to an earlier phone call on the same topic from a Navy officer named Dmitriev the State Commission convened to review the readiness of Vehicle No which was already on the launch pad at the time presumably rolled out there around September 22 According to Mishin's notes at the meeting, one of the fueling trucks was apparently late to arrive at the launch pad for propellant-loading operations and four other issues had to be dealt with during the final countdown. He also quoted S. Arkadeevich Krutovskikh as reporting that a two-channel central computer onboard the Block D upper stage was operating at 0.992 capacity Pikovsky reported that a transmitter operating at a meter frequency range had failed and would not be available during the flight The rocket then lost stability at T+61 seconds in flight and soon began disintegrating. (466) Its flaming debris finally fell between 40 and 50 kilometers from the launch site. (400) As the rocket was failing, the newly designed Emergency Escape System, SAS, at the top of the L1 spacecraft was successfully activated. However due to unexpectedly high dynamic pressure on the vehicle during the separation from the rocket, the descent control system, SUS, failed to properly stabilize the descent module the capsule landed in the direct vicinity of the crashed rocket which arrived to recover the module witnessed a bizarre scene with the descent module sitting on the top of a small hill backdropped by a giant brown-yellowish cloud extending from horizon to horizon over the crash site The situation vividly illustrated the dangers of recovering the vehicle after a failure early in flight and required the project managers to look again at the safety of the personnel involved in such operations. (52) Mishin returned back to Moscow from Tyuratam on Sept. 30, 1967, two days after the failed launch. The post-failure investigation revealed that a small rubber cover accidentally left in the engine line and ingested into the propellant line during the launch, had been the culprit in the launch failure. (466) Next chapter: Dual mission of Soyuz 7K-OK No. 6 and No. 5 (Kosmos-186, -188) A night launch of an UR-500K rocket with a 7K-L1 spacecraft Articles by Anatoly Zak | Editor: Alain Chabot the dual Soyuz mission finally accomplished the rendezvous and partial crew transfer from one spacecraft to another The experimental flight had long-running implications for future lunar expeditions and orbital assembly Previous chapter: Soyuz-2, -3 mission Joint mission of Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 spacecraft at a glance: 23 hours 50 seconds total during a flight aboard Soyuz-5 and Soyuz-4 Flight scenario for Soyuz-4 and -5 mission Soviet officials overseeing the Soyuz 7K-OK project finally gave the official green light to the second attempt to dock two spacecraft and transfer part of the crew from one ship to the other The leaders of the program were now confident in the original flight scenario which had remained unfulfilled since the Soyuz-1 tragedy Preparing joint flight of Soyuz-4 and -5 Following the Soyuz-3 mission in October 1968 the newly approved crews for Soyuz-4 and -5 went through simulations of all phases of the flight took the final exams formally concluding their training including spinning on the centrifuge and made several trips to the Zvezda spacesuit factory Soyuz-4 lifts off! as the launch date for Soyuz-4 with the 13th Soviet cosmonaut onboard However the mission had to be postponed for 24 hours due to a problem with the rocket's gyroscopic system Soyuz-4 lifted off from snow-covered Site 31 in Tyuratam on Jan Soyuz-5 lifts off! Immediately after Soyuz-4 blasted into orbit officials supervising the dual flight turned their attention to Site 1 Aleksei Yeliseev and Evgeny Khrunov lifted off Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 dock in orbit the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 met up as planned and conducted a picture-perfect docking at 11:20 Moscow Time during the 34th revolution around the Earth for the Soyuz-4 and the 18th orbit for Soyuz-5 while Volynov maintained Soyuz-5 in the correct orientation Cosmonauts transfer from Soyuz-5 to Soyuz-4 conducted a 37-minute transfer from Soyuz-5 to Soyuz-4 on the exterior of the spacecraft the spacewalkers joined Vladimir Shatalov for a trip back to Earth Soyuz-4 lands successfully After 4 hours 33 minutes and 49 seconds in a joint flight at 15:55 Moscow Time and both crews began preparations for landing Soyuz-4 made a picture-perfect landing on the morning of the following day around 40 kilometers from Karaganda in Kazakhstan Soyuz-5 makes near-fatal crash landing but the Instrument Module on the spacecraft failed to separate in time triggering a chain of dangerous events during the ballistic descent Boris Volynov narrowly escaped death during a harrowing reentry and hard landing All articles and illustrations inside this section by Anatoly Zak unless stated otherwise Soviet lunar program The Soyuz pair makes flawless automated docking After the problem-ridden first rendezvous in October 1967, Soviet space officials decided to send another unmanned pair of Soyuz spacecraft to dock in orbit. The preparation for the mission was overshadowed by the tragic death in a plane crash of the world's first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in March 1968 two Soyuz spacecraft completed the successful automated docking without a hitch Previous chapter: Mission of the 7K-L1 No. 4L circumlunar spacecraft Joint mission of Kosmos-212 and Kosmos-213 at a glance: Even before the first historic docking of the two Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft in October 1967, Dmitry Ustinov, who supervised the rocket industry, instructed the program managers to prepare another unmanned joint mission, no matter what would be the outcome of the first rendezvous attempt. (820) After the death of Komarov in the previous year the leadership at the TsKBEM design bureau and the Kremlin officials had little appetite to fight this order During a meeting on November 11, 1967, considering the status of the 7K-OK project Chertok apparently made a proposal to reserve already assembled vehicles No while the follow-on pair of spacecraft (No 10) would be configured for an unmanned test flight with necessary design changes The same upgrades would then be implemented on vehicles No Ultimately, Vehicles No. 7 and No. 8 were ordered to be prepared for another unmanned mission. (466) In parallel, another 7K-L1 vehicle was being readied in Tyuratam for a circumlunar test flight. (774) 7) was scheduled to launch and enter a 190-210-kilometer orbital orbit with the same inclination the active vehicle was to begin rendezvous maneuvers with its newly launched target The crucial rendezvous and the joint flight were to take place during the 17th, 18th and 19th orbit in flight for the first spacecraft, with following communications windows between the vehicles and the Soviet ground stations: A total of 98 issues were discovered during the preparation of Vehicles No while 11 problems were linked to conflicts in the technical documentation On April 10, Vehicle No. 8 was integrated with the Block I (third stage) and its payload fairing 7 was undergoing final testing after its fueling followed by its final assembly the next day On April 12, at 7:00 in the morning, Vehicle No. 8 was rolled out to the launch pad at Site 31. On the same day, the payload section containing the 7K-OK No. 7 spacecraft was transferred to the assembly building at Site 2, where it was integrated with its 11A511 (Soyuz) rocket The next morning (April 13), Vehicle No. 7 was rolled out to the launch pad at Site 1 The integrated "general" tests of Vehicle No 7 were completed by 17:30 Moscow Time on April 13 The State Commission, overseeing the launch operations, met at Site 31 around 11:30 in the morning local time of April 14 and gave the green light to the liftoff of the first spacecraft (No. 8) that afternoon. (774) As usual, several teams of cosmonauts, who were training for the upcoming manned rendezvous missions, were spread out between the launch site and the NIP-16 ground station in Crimea to monitor the dual test flight. (820) The Soyuz 7K-OK No. 8 lifted off from Tyuratam on April 14, 1968, at 13:00:0,137 Moscow Time (10:00 GMT). After a smooth ride to orbit, the spacecraft successfully separated from the third stage of the launch vehicle at 13:08:51 Moscow Time the orbit was within specifications and would allow the spacecraft to orbit the Earth safely without any additional maneuvers for more than 50 revolutions During the fourth orbit, around 17:33 Moscow Time, as Soyuz reappeared over the Soviet ground stations mission control radioed the instructions to the ship's flight control system for the upcoming orbit correction during its 5th orbit The maneuver reduced the orbital velocity of the spacecraft by 10.39 meters per second and post-maneuver measurements showed the following parameters: Around that time, the launch was publicly announced as Kosmos-212. (50) The State Commission met again at 10:30 local time in Tyuratam on April 15 to review the readiness of Vehicle No. 7 and its rocket for liftoff. Lt. Colonel V. A. Polyakov reported that the previous day's launch had been flawless, while Patrushev and Yurasov said that the fresh rocket and the spacecraft were in good shape. Ground control stations were also ready The passive vehicle 7K-OK No. 7 was launched a day after the first, at 12:34:17.1 Moscow Time (09:34 GMT). According to Kamanin, (who led cosmonaut training) the liftoff was two seconds off the planned time, but at the completion of the orbital insertion, the fresh vehicle ended up just four kilometers from an interceptor vehicle awaiting for it. (820) The second Soyuz was officially designated as Kosmos-213 and was reported to be in a slightly lower 205 by 291-kilometer orbit than that of Kosmos-212. (50) the automated docking process was initiated As the pair passed over the IP-15 ground station in Ussuriisk in the Soviet Far East the closure rate between the two vehicles was two meters per second When they left the communication range at 12:56 Moscow Time the rendezvous radar on the active ship was reliably locked in on its target The pressure in the DPO rendezvous thrusters showed healthy 250 atmospheres the mechanical docking between the two spacecraft began at 13:21:30 Moscow Time or just 47 minutes after the launch of the second (passive) vehicle they were in a 204.54 by 289.3 kilometer orbit The docking was apparently completed at 13:31 Moscow Time (10:31 GMT). (50) Live TV images from orbit confirmed that the spacecraft had formed a solid stack. (820) The two ships remained docked for more than three hours until 14:11 GMT on April 15. (50) Following the successful rendezvous,a group of cosmonauts led by Georgy Beregovoi, flew from Tyuratam to Crimea to watch the rest of the dual mission. (820) 7) were prepared for landing on April 19 and April 20 Mishin flew to Crimea and at 21:00 Moscow Time he chaired a technical meeting on the upcoming landing the spacecraft were in the following orbits: Mission control planned two opportunities for the landing of the active Vehicle No On April 19, Vehicle No. 8 fired its DO-2 thrusters reducing its velocity by 85 meters per second. During its maneuver, mission control kept the spacecraft in the proper orientation, relying on ion and infrared sensors. (774) 8 was reported landing 20 kilometers southwest of the town of Maikolna The attitude control system worked as planned and the capsule made a controlled reentry using the Landing Control System the Soyuz demonstrated its capability to provide aerodynamic lift during the flight in the dense atmosphere However, due to continuous upgrades to the landing system, both descent modules had their systems for detaching parachutes after touchdown deactivated. (231) As a result, on April 19, unusually strong winds reaching 22 or 23 meters per second at the landing site dragged the capsule around five kilometers. (820) the full attention of the mission control switched to Vehicle No The spacecraft was commanded to conduct test orientation for the upcoming braking maneuver engineers had a final technical meeting preparing for landing engineers reviewed the latest telemetry data gathered from Vehicle No The controlled reentry was now scheduled during the 98th orbit of the dual mission which would be the 82nd orbit for Vehicle No During its 97th orbit, the spacecraft passed over the IP-16 station in Crimea, followed by IP-3 in Sary Shagan and IP-15 in Ussuriisk as ground controllers conducted final preparations for landing the spacecraft was commanded to turn tail first and maintain its attitude using a combination of infrared and ion sensors The SKDU engine ignited at 12:29:04 Moscow Time and fired until 12:35:39 Moscow Time reducing the ship's velocity by 105 meters per second The descent module then separated at 12:45:08 Moscow Time and appeared in view of the IP-16 station in Crimea at 12:46:44 Moscow Time The opening of the main parachute then took place at 13:01:09 followed by the landing at 13:13 Moscow Time According to the Soviet air defense services the landing point had coordinates of 52 degrees 17 minutes North latitude and 71 degrees 42 minutes East longitude It was 145 kilometers from the city of Pavlodar The weather at the landing site apparently repeated itself on April 20, 1968. (231) Winds were reaching 25 meters per second in the area. Again, the search and rescue teams zeroed in on the descent module while it was still in the air a strong dust storm prevented the helicopters from dropping the recovery personnel at the touchdown site Nevertheless, on April 20, the first descent module arrived at Tyuratam aboard an An-12 transport plane and after a preliminary inspection by specialists, the capsule proceeded to Moscow. By all accounts, the second Soyuz docking mission was a complete success, (820) however it was only in 1985 that an official Soviet publication identified Kosmos-212 and -213 as unmanned Soyuz spacecraft. (2) Next chapter: Mission of 7K-L1 No. 7L Page editor: Alain Chabot; Last edit: April 16 Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft under assembly in Tyuratam A Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft during a rendezvous in orbit Here we are to serve you with news right now quality journalism and subscribe on a monthly basis you can have full digital access to all news Proces du 13-November : ce que ces hommes opaques ont dans la tete Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit Blanditiis optio incidunt eum omnis ratione error temporibus iure porro esse Integer consectetur quam eget ipsum dictum accumsan Donec non lectus id risus rutrum ullamcorper sit amet vel nulla Space tracking sites suggest Russian-made spacecraft re-entered atmosphere at same time object was seen in Dubai Dubai: Was the flaming object flying overhead in Dubai and the UAE a meteor The celestial spectacle over UAE's skies caught residents by surprise at around 7.30pm on Monday Many took videos and pictures of the bright flash streaking through the night sky in Dubai and Abu Dhabi It was also reportedly seen in other parts of the Arabian Gulf Then the bright light was seen breaking off into small parts — but still moving in parallel Residents posted the pictures and videos of the spectacle on social media While some said it was a meteorite, information from Satview, which tracks satellites show that the fiery object may actually have been the spacecraft known as SL-4 R/B The website claimed that the US Strategic Command — in charge of the US nuclear cyber and 'Star Wars' programme — had sent out an "official message" that the "SL-4 R/B satellite reentered the atmosphere Oct/16/2017 at 15:28 UTC (7.28pm Dubai time) with an approximate error of +/- 1 minute(s)" The site gave the approxiate re-entry point on the map which correlates with the time and location in which the atmospheric entry event was observed in the UAE on Monday night The satellite, according to another site, had a Norad ID No. 39033 and international code 2012-074B 2012 at the Tyuratam Missile and Space Complex in Russia Satflare, another satellite tracking site said that the SL-4 R/B had already "decayed". It states: "WARNING: This object has decayed on Mon, 16/10/2017 UTC the yellow track shows the re-enter window" over the south-eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula said the 80-second celestial event was the falling space debris of the Russian-built Progress module [Code: SL-4 R/B (42972U)] which burnt upon re-entry The module was used to supply the International Space Station regularly "The space craft disintegrated in the upper atmosphere and broke up into smaller chunks and burned like fireworks The trajectory of the debris was over Arabian Peninsula crossing UAE and Oman to finally over Indian Ocean," the group's statement said According to Satview, three more space junk objects are set to re-enter the earth's atmosphere between October 18 to 27, and they can be tracked here Meanwhile, a 2017 meteor shower guide published by Earthsky the Orionids will be active from October 17 to 25 the shower may reach 15 meteors per hour that may be observed at favorable sky condition,” usually after midnight and before dawn become visible in the night skies as the Earth passes through the stream of debris left behind by the Halley’s Comet It is called Orionids because the meteors seem to radiate from the constellation Orion the second brightest star in the constellation An asteriod is a small rocky body orbiting the sun are found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the Earth's atmosphere and impact with the Earth's surface or that of another planet When the object enters the earth's atmosphere and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate that energy Is a celestial object consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust and forms a "tail" of gas and dust particles pointing away from the sun Comets are often referred to as "dirty snowballs," left over from the formation of stars and planets billions of years ago When the meteorite passes through the atmosphere the meteorite becomes a meteor — forms a fireball also known as a "shooting star" or "falling star"; astronomers call the brightest examples "bolides" Nasa defines a meteoroid as a small chunk of rock or iron that travels through space Meteorites that survive atmospheric entry and impact vary greatly in size a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create a crater Meteorites that are recovered after being observed as they transit the atmosphere or impact the Earth are called meteorite falls 2013 - More than 1,100 people were injured when a meteor the size of a bus and weighed an estimated 7,000 tons exploded over Russia  2014 - ‘Meteorite’ smashes into Nicaraguan capital 2016 - Indian authorities said a falling object that killed a bus driver and injured three others in Chennai 2017 - A large asteroid as big as the Rock of Gibraltar had an uncomfortably close but safe encounter with the Earth there were about 1,140 witnessed falls that have specimens in the world's collections There are more than 38,660 well-documented meteorite finds September 1, 2017 - Nasa tracked the Asteriod Florence as it passed earth Scientists also found two small moons orbiting the Asteriod Florence Get the latest news and updates straight to your inbox Dubai’s AI-powered humanoid robot now speaks in Hindi UAE residents urged to take Dark Sky Week pledge Watch: AI drone beats human pilot in Abu Dhabi race UAE Cybersecurity raises alarms over AI photo apps