Experimental flight "Apollo-Soyuz". Piloted space flights: history

The conquest of the cosmos is the dream that has occupied the minds of many people for hundreds of years. Back in those distant, distant times, when a person could see stars and planets, relying only on his vision, he dreamed to find out what was hiding the bottomless black abyss of the dark sky above his head. Dreams began to come true relatively recently.

Almost all the leading space powers immediately began a kind of "arms race" here too: scientists tried to outrun their colleagues, before they were launching and testing various devices for the exploration of outer space. However, the gleam was still: the Apollo-Soyuz program was supposed to show friendship between the USSR and the US, and their desire to work together to pave the way for mankind to the stars.

General information

The abbreviated name of this program is ASTP. The flight is also known as the "Handshake in Space". In general, the Apollo-Soyuz was a bold experimental flight of the Soyuz-19 and the American Apollo. The participants of the expedition had to overcome many difficulties, the most significant of which consisted in completely different design of the docking units. But it was docking on the "agenda"!

In fact, quite normal contacts between scientists of the USSR and the United States began even at the time of the launch of the first artificial earth satellites. The agreement on a common, peaceful exploration of outer space was signed in 1962. At the same time, researchers were able to share the results of programs and some developments in the space industry.

The first meetings of researchers

On the part of the USSR and the USA, the initiators of the joint work were the President of the Academy of Sciences (AN), the famous MV Keldysh, and the Director of the National Aerospace Agency (in the world known as NASA), Dr. Payne.

The first meeting of delegations from the US and the USSR took place in late autumn 1970. The American mission was headed by the director of the Johnson Space Flight Center Dr. R. Gilrut. On the Soviet side, the chairman of the Council for the International Exploration of Outer Space (the Intercosmos program) was Academician BN Petrov. Immediately, joint working groups were formed, the main task of which was to discuss the possibility of compatibility of the structural units of Soviet and American spacecraft.

The following year, already in Houston, a new meeting was organized, which was supervised by the already known BN Petrov and R. Gilrut. The teams reviewed the basic requirements for the design features of manned vehicles, and a number of issues regarding the standardization of life-support systems were fully agreed upon. It was then that the possibility of a joint flight with subsequent docking by the crews was being discussed.

As you can see, the Soyuz-Apollo program, the year of implementation of which became the triumph of the world cosmonautics, demanded the revision of a huge number of technical and political rules and regulations.

Conclusions on the expediency of joint manned flights

In 1972, the Soviet and American sides again arranged a meeting at which all the work done during the past period was summarized and systematized. The final decision on the expediency of the joint manned flight was positive, for the implementation of the program, ships already known to us were chosen. So the project "Apollo-Soyuz" was born.

Beginning of the program

It was May, 1972. A historic agreement was signed between our country and America, providing for a joint peaceful exploration of outer space. In addition, the parties finally decided on the technical side of the issue on the flight "Apollo-Soyuz". This time the delegations were headed: from the Soviet side there was Academician K. D. Bushuyev, Americans were represented by Dr. G. Lanni.

During the meeting, they decided on the goals that all further work will be devoted to:

• Test of the compatibility of control systems in the implementation of the approach of ships in space conditions.
• Checking in the "field" conditions of automatic and manual docking systems.
• Testing and tuning of equipment designed to make the transition of astronauts from the ship to the ship.
• Finally, the accumulation of invaluable experience in the field of joint manned spaceflight. When Soyuz-19 docked with the ship Apollo, the specialists received so much valuable information that they were actively used throughout the American lunar program.

Other areas of work

Specialists, among other things, wanted to test the possibility of orientation in the space already docked ships, as well as to test the stability of communication systems on different machines. Finally, it was extremely important to test the compatibility of Soviet and American flight control systems.

Here's how the main events developed at that time:

• At the end of May 1975, a final meeting was held to discuss some organizational issues. The final document on full readiness for the flight was signed. It was signed by Academician V. A. Kotelnikov from the Soviet side, from the Americans the document was endorsed by J. Law. The date of launch was set for July 15, 1975.
• Exactly at 15 o'clock 20 minutes from the Baikonur cosmodrome the Soviet Union-19 successfully starts.
• Using the launch vehicle "Saturn-1B" starts "Apollo". Time is 22 hours and 50 minutes. The starting point is Cape Canaveral.
• After two days, after completing all the preparatory work, at 19 hours and 12 minutes "Soyuz-19" docked. In 1975, a new era of space exploration was opened.
• Exactly two turns of "Union" on the Earth's orbit made a new docking "Soyuz-Apollo", after which they flew in this position two more turns. After some time, the apparatus completely separated, completing the research program.

In general, the flight time was:

• The Soviet Union 19 spent in orbit 5 days, 22 hours and 31 minutes.
• "Apollo" spent 9 days, 1 hour and 28 minutes in flight.
• In docked position, the ships spent exactly 46 hours and 36 minutes.

Crew composition

And now it's time to remember by name the crew members of the American and Soviet ships, who, having overcome a huge number of difficulties, were able to fully implement all the stages of such an important space program.

The American crew was represented by:

• Thomas Stafford. Commander of the American crew. An experienced astronaut, the fourth flight.
• Vance Brand. The command module was piloted, the first flight.
• Donald Slayton. It was he who was responsible for the responsible operation of docking, this was also his first flight.

The Soviet crew consisted of the following cosmonauts:

• Alexei Leonov was commander.
• Valery Kubasov was an on-board engineer.

Both Soviet cosmonauts have already been in orbit once, so the Soyuz-Apollo flight has become their second.

What experiments were conducted during the joint flight?

• An experiment was conducted, which provides for the study of the solar eclipse: "Apollo" closed the light, while on the "Soyuz" they studied and described the resulting effects.
• Ultraviolet absorption was studied, during which crews measured the content of atomic oxygen and nitrogen in the orbit of the planet.
• In addition, several experiments were conducted, during which the researchers checked how weightlessness, the absence of a magnetic field and other conditions of space affect the course of biological rhythms.
• For microbiologists, a program of studying the mutual exchange and transfer of microorganisms under conditions of weightlessness between two ships (via a docking unit) is also of great interest.
• Finally, the Soyuz-Apollo flight made it possible to investigate the processes taking place in metallic and semiconductor materials under such specific conditions. It should be noted that KP Gurov, the father of this kind of study, became famous in the environment of metallurgists, who suggested carrying out these works.

Some technical details

It should be noted that on the American ship, pure oxygen was used as the breathing mixture, while on the domestic ship there was an atmosphere identical in composition to that on the Earth. Thus, direct transfer from the ship to the ship was impossible. Specially for the solution of this problem, along with the American ship, a special transitional compartment was launched.

It should be noted that the Americans subsequently used this development in the creation of their lunar module. At the transition, the pressure in the Apollo was slightly raised, and in the Soyuz, on the contrary, it was reduced, while simultaneously raising the oxygen content in the respiratory mixture to 40%. As a result, people were able to stay in the transitional module (before calling at another's ship) not eight hours, but only 30 minutes.

By the way, if you are interested in this story, visit the Cosmonautics Museum in Moscow. A huge stand is dedicated to this topic.

The general history of manned spaceflight

In our article, the topic of the history of manned space flights is not accidentally touched upon. The entire program described above would have been impossible in principle, were it not for the preliminary developments in this field, the experience on which has been accumulating for decades. Who "paved the way", thanks to whom manned space flights became possible?

As is known, on April 12, 1961, an event took place that was truly of world significance. That day, Yuri Gagarin carried out the first manned flight in the history of the world on the ship "Vostok".

The United States became the second country that carried out this kind of activity. Their spaceship Mercury-Redstone-3, piloted by Alan Shepard, was launched into orbit a month later, May 5, 1961. In February, from Cape Canaveral, the "Mercury-Atlas-6", on which John Glenn was on board, was launched.

First records and achievements

Two years after Gagarin, the first woman flew into space. It was Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova. She flew alone on the ship Vostok-6. The launch was made on June 16, 1963. In America, the first representative of the weaker sex that was in orbit was Sally Ryde. She was a member of the mixed crew, which flew in 1983.

Already on March 18, 1965, another record was broken: Aleksei Leonov went into space. Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to visit the open space , which she did in 1984. Note that at present women are included in all the crews of the ISS, without exception, since all the necessary information on the physiology of the female organism in space conditions was collected, and therefore the health of the cosmonauts is not threatened.

The longest flights

Up to this day, the longest single space flight is the 437-day stay in orbit of cosmonaut Valery Polyakov. He stayed on board the "Peace" from January 1994 to March 1995. The record for the total number of days spent in orbit, again belongs to the domestic cosmonaut - Sergei Krikalev.

If we talk about a group flight, then about 364 days cosmonauts and astronauts flew from September 1989 to August 1999. So it was proved that a man, theoretically, can withstand a flight to Mars. Now researchers are more concerned about the problem of the crew's psychological compatibility.

Information on the history of reusable space flights

To date, the only country that has a more or less successful experience of operating reusable space shuttles of the "Space Shuttle" series is the United States. The first flight of the spacecraft of this series, "Columbia", occurred exactly two decades after Gagarin's flight, April 12, 1981. The USSR first and only time launched the "Buran" in 1988. That flight is also unique in that it took place in a fully automatic mode, although manual piloting was also possible.

The exhibition, in which the entire history of the "Soviet shuttle" is shown, is demonstrated by the Cosmonautics Museum in Moscow. We advise him to visit, because there is a lot of interesting things!

The highest orbit, reaching the 1374 kilometer mark at the highest point of the passage, was reached by an American crew on the Gemini-11 ship. This happened in 1966. In addition, shuttles were often used to repair and maintain the Hubble telescope, when they performed quite complex manned flights at an altitude of about 600 kilometers. More often than not, the orbit of a spacecraft passes at an altitude of about 200-300 kilometers.

Note that immediately after the end of the shuttle operation, the ISS's orbit was gradually raised to an altitude of 400 kilometers. This is due to the fact that shuttles could effectively maneuver at an altitude of only 300 kilometers, but for the station those heights were not very suitable because of the high density of the surrounding space (by space standards, of course).

Have flights been carried out beyond the Earth's orbit?

Out of the Earth's orbit, only Americans flew when they performed the tasks of the Apollo program. The spacecraft in 1968 flew the moon. Let's notice that from July 16, 1969, Americans carried out their lunar program, during which the "landing" was carried out. At the end of 1972, the program was curtailed, which caused resentment not only of American, but also of Soviet scientists who shared their colleagues.

Note that in the USSR there were many similar programs. Despite the almost complete completion of many of them, the "good" for their implementation has never been received.

Other "space" countries

China became the third space power. It happened on October 15, 2003, when the ship "Shenzhou-5" went into space. In general, China's space program originates back in the 70s of the last century, but all planned flights were never completed.

In the late 1990s, Europeans and Japanese made their steps in this direction. But their projects for the creation of reusable manned spacecraft were curtailed after several years of development, since the Soviet-Russian Soyuz was simpler, more reliable and cheaper, which led to the economic inexpediency of the work.

Space tourism and "private space"

Since 1978, astronauts from dozens of countries have performed flights on ships and stations of the USSR / Russian Federation and the United States. In addition, recently the so-called "space tourism" is gaining momentum, when an ordinary person (unusual for financial opportunities) can visit the ISS. In the recent past, China also announced the beginning of the development of similar programs.

But the real excitement was caused by the program Ansari X-Prize, which started in 1996. Under its terms, it was required that a private company (without state support) until the end of 2004 could raise (twice) to a height of 100 kilometers a ship with a crew of three. The prize was more than solid - $ 10 million. More than two dozen companies and even private individuals immediately began to develop their projects.

Thus began a new history of space exploration, in which any person could theoretically become the "discoverer" of the cosmos.

The first successes of "private traders"

Since the devices they designed did not need to go into space, costs were hundreds of times less. The first private spacecraft SpaceShipOne started in early summer 2004. Created by his company Scaled Composites.

Five-minute "conspiracy theory"

It should be noted that many projects (almost all, in general) were based not on any developments of private "nuggets", but on works on FAU-2 and the Soviet "Buran", all documentation on which after the 90s " Suddenly "suddenly became available to the foreign public. Some adherents of bold theories say that the USSR conducted (unsuccessfully) the first manned launches back in 1957-1959.

There are also unconfirmed reports that the Nazis were developing intercontinental missile projects for America's attacks in the 1940s. It is rumored that during the tests some pilots could still reach a height of 100 kilometers, which makes them (if at all) the first astronauts.

"World" era

Until now, the history of astronautics stores information on the Soviet-Russian station "Mir", which was really a unique object. Its construction was completed only on April 26, 1996. Then the fifth, last module was added to the station, which made it possible to carry out the most complicated studies of the seas, oceans and forests of the Earth.

On the orbit "Mir" was 14.5 years, which several times exceeded the planned period of operation. During this time alone, only 11 tons of scientific equipment were delivered, scientists conducted tens of thousands of unique experiments, some of which predetermined the development of world science for all subsequent decades. In addition, astronauts and astronauts from the station carried out 75 outlets in open space, the total duration of which is 15 days.

History of the ISS

In the construction of the International Space Station , 16 countries participated. The greatest contribution to its creation was invested by Russian, European (Germany and France), and also by American specialists. This facility is designed for 15 years of operation with the possibility of extending this period.

The first long-term expedition to the ISS started in late October 2000. On its board have already been visited by participants in 42 long missions. It should be noted that the first in the world of the Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes arrived in the 13th expedition to the station. He successfully completed all the work intended for him, and then returned to Earth as a member of the 12th mission.

That's how the history of space flights was made. There were many discoveries and victories, some gave their lives so that mankind could someday still be able to call the cosmos its home. It remains only to hope that our civilization will continue to study in this area, and someday we will wait for the colonization of the nearest planets.