Outposts on the Frontier: A Fifty-Year History of Space Stations (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)

by Jay Chladek

  Anatomy of the DOS

  At a glance, the external configuration of the DOS design didn’t look that different from Almaz. The biggest change was that instead of docking port for a Soyuz at the rear of the DOS, as was intended for Almaz, a docking port was placed in a new housing on the front of the station. In addition to the docking port, this new housing contained two solar arrays of the same type as used on Soyuz, a scientific telescope, equipment for the Igla rendezvous-and-docking system, the life-support system, and telemetry antennae. Consumables storage tanks were also mounted on the outside of this new section.

  Through the main transfer compartment, cosmonauts would enter the smaller of the two stepped cylinders of the Almaz station core. Internally, the layout of these cylinders was quite a bit different from Almaz, since the DOS engineers didn’t have to worry about placement of the massive Agat camera system. While the primary living section for Almaz was the smaller cylinder and the larger cylinder was the workspace for the surveillance mission, in the DOS the smaller cylinder became more of a mission-support workspace where the station’s controls were located. A worktable and galley were kept in the smaller compartment, but other items such as the exercise equipment, a refrigerator for food storage, and sleeping bags were housed in the main work compartment in the larger section. Internally, the two compartments formed one rectangular-shaped space with no real difference in their internal dimensions. But thanks to its larger exterior dimensions, the main work compartment carried larger-volume storage lockers than the smaller cylinder. At the rear end of the main work compartment, separated by a small partition, was the hygiene and toilet station. Urine was collected by a vacuum system, while solid fecal waste was stored in separate holding tanks.

  The interior of the DOS was designed with a strict sense of direction, meaning there was a floor, walls, and a ceiling; each was defined accordingly with a different color. It was believed that this would help with orientation of the cosmonauts, make it easier to locate stored equipment, and potentially help to stave off bouts of space sickness. Stored equipment was kept in lockers so that it would be less likely for damage to occur from a cosmonaut bumping into exposed hardware. Each internal panel was designed to be removable for maintenance. Self-maintenance of station systems was important when the nearest systems engineer was located hundreds of miles away down on Earth. Cleaning could be done with a vacuum cleaner, and the crew also had access to dry and wet tissues for their own personal hygiene, as well as antibacterial towels (similar to antiseptic wipes) for washing in place of a bath or shower.

  Two seats were provided at the control section for the commander and a flight engineer. The station could be flown manually with controls that resembled those found on a Soyuz. Displays were provided to help with orientation, as was a periscope for additional visual sightings. Sometimes it was necessary for crewmembers to fly the DOS in order to carry out scientific observations, such as when manual aiming of one of the station’s telescopes was needed. Orientation of the station could be controlled with gyrodynes, which could move the station slowly. Orientation thrusters could be used for quicker maneuvers or to stabilize the station during reboost burns. Thruster use would be minimized to ration the onboard fuel supply for as long as possible.

  Each cosmonaut was allocated four meals per day in the form of two breakfasts, a lunch (which is the largest meal in many eastern European cultures), and dinner. They could prepare their meals on a table located aft of the control section, and a hot plate was provided for heating liquids, such as coffee or soups, while the crew was “seated” at the table. Total calorie intake for all four meals was about three thousand calories, if all the meal items were consumed. A water tank provided the water rations for all three cosmonauts, and each occupant was allowed up to two liters of water per day. The water source was connected with additional water tanks located in the main work compartment. The water supply was launched into orbit with the station; since Soviet spacecraft did not use fuel cells like NASA’s Apollo spacecraft, there was no way to top off the tanks. Silver ions were added to the water as a biocide to make it safe for human consumption.

  On the back of the station, in the spot originally intended to be the docking port of Almaz, was a modified Soyuz service module containing a second set of solar arrays. The biggest difference between this module and the standard Soyuz unit was that it contained the larger engines needed for orbital maneuvering and reboosting of the station during its time in orbit. While the solar arrays used by the DOS were of a proven design, they were not nearly as powerful as the arrays intended for the Almaz, and electrical power would be at a premium. To supplement the electrical system, while the Soyuz ferry was docked with the station, its solar arrays would be hooked into the station’s grid to provide additional energy. Yet even with the Soyuz, these early solar arrays would lose efficiency the longer the station stayed in orbit. The first DOS station could only support up to two missions with three crewmembers each for a month at a time before it would have to be abandoned.

  13. The first civilian station had a few differences from Almaz. Courtesy of the author.

  Thermal regulation of the station’s internal temperature was done with a set of internal and external heat loops linked to a set of heat radiators mounted on the main body of the station. Heat transfer was done with an ethylene-glycol mixture similar to car antifreeze pumped through the cooling loops. Internal temperature was regulated to a comfortable fifteen to twenty-five degrees Celsius (or fifty-nine to seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit). Humidity could be maintained from 20 to 80 percent through the use of water-condensation plates.

  While the DOS was occupied, the cosmonauts would be doing more than just floating around, as the station was packed with about one and a half tons of scientific equipment. Studies would take place around the clock, with the three crewmembers doing eight-hour shifts similar to what was planned for Almaz. So for each cosmonaut, that meant eight hours for work; eight hours for support tasks such as hygiene, meals, and exercise; and the final eight hours for sleep. The Soyuz could be used as a dormitory of sorts during this mission, so the cosmonaut at rest would sleep inside the ferry craft to minimize interruptions by the others.

  A broad set of scientific experiments in multiple disciplines was planned for the DOS with studies in astronomy, Earth observation, life sciences, and medicine. Taking advantage of the opening located on one side of the Almaz core originally intended for the Agat camera, several different telescopes and spectrometers were mounted in a conical unit inside the station’s main working compartment. It stretched almost from the floor to the ceiling. With the station being based on Almaz, many drawings and pictures showing the internal layout of the DOS had the conical compartment airbrushed out so as not to draw the attention of Western intelligence analysts. Unlike Almaz, the opening for the telescopes would be pointed toward the heavens instead of down toward Earth. Three additional instruments—an ultraviolet telescope, a gamma-ray telescope, and an astrophysical telescope—were placed in other parts of the station.

  For ground control of the DOS missions, the Soviets would use a new tracking network originally intended for their Soyuz and lunar missions. The main control center was located in Yevpatoria, Ukraine, on the north shore of the Black Sea. Given that the center was located several hundred miles from Moscow almost due south, it meant that the only way to travel between the two cities in quick fashion was by airplane. The Soviet Union itself contained several tracking stations that could maintain direct communication with the station as it passed over the Soviet Union. But given that each orbit would place the spacecraft farther west, there were times of the day when the orbit would not cross Soviet borders. So for that, the Soviets developed a fleet of tracking ships that were built for two-way communications, to supplement a fleet of smaller vessels that could only receive transmissions. Communications between the space station, the tracking ships, and the control center in Yevpatoria could be routed through communications satellites.


  Laying the Foundation for the DOS

  While work progressed on designing and building the new space station, the focus of Soyuz flights changed from short-duration to long-duration spaceflights. The first was Soyuz 9, which was a precursor mission to the first DOS flight. The spacecraft was loaded with as many consumables as possible to support two cosmonauts for an eighteen-day endurance test. At the same time, several three-person crews began training for long-term stays aboard the new station. The cosmonauts already selected for missions to the Almaz stations continued their training separately because of Almaz’s intelligence goals.

  Cosmonauts Andrian Nikolayev and Vitali Sevastyanov were selected to fly the Soyuz 9 mission. Nikolayev was no stranger to spaceflight, as he became the third cosmonaut to fly behind Gagarin and Titov when he commanded the Vostok 3 spaceflight. Nikolayev’s nickname among the cosmonauts was the Iron Man, because he held the record for the longest time a cosmonaut spent in isolation testing on the ground. The Iron Man seemed like a perfect fit for this mission. In addition, Nikolayev was married to the first woman to fly in space, Valentina Tereshkova.

  Vitali Sevastyanov, on the other hand, was an engineer from TsKBEM who began working for Korolev after graduating from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1959. He worked on the Vostok spacecraft and also assisted in the training of cosmonauts before he himself was selected for training in 1967. Sevastyanov was an avid chess player and would play the first chess match in space on Soyuz 9 against an opponent on the ground. He was selected for this mission since his engineering background would come in handy to help deal with any unforeseen problems that cropped up with the spacecraft.

  There was a lot more to flying a Soyuz for such a long duration than just loading it up with more provisions. A new life-support system and carbon dioxide scrubber that could withstand constant use for three times longer than previous flights had to be installed. Exercise equipment had to be fitted for the cosmonauts to help combat the effects of long-term weightlessness. In zero gravity, certain muscles begin to atrophy since they aren’t acting against gravity as they would during normal activities on Earth. A new type of load-bearing suit was also to be tested on this flight. This suit, which would eventually become known as the penguin suit, contained several elastic bands that would force the muscles to work in ways they wouldn’t normally do so otherwise. It was a form of passive exercise, in a sense. In preparation for the upcoming space station flights, the shock absorbers on the crew couches were modified to make the landing more bearable after weeks spent in zero gravity.

  Soyuz 9 launched on 1 June 1970. The cosmonauts on board took up the call sign “Sokol” (“Falcon” in Russian), which was Nikolayev’s call sign from Vostok 3. While on orbit, the cosmonauts were referred to as Sokol 1 and Sokol 2 instead of by their real names. Space research was the key to this flight, and the cosmonauts conducted biomedical research experiments, photography of Earth, navigation exercises with a sextant, and evaluation of the new penguin suit. The flight program was so packed with tasks that midway through the mission, the crew began to evade the planned exercise program. Even after they were scolded by mission control for doing so, they still did not exercise. When the crew returned to Earth on 19 June, they were barely able to stand. Reports say that it took ten days for the crew to recover to their pre-mission fitness level. But they endured. All indications were that the spacecraft performed well and that the mission could have potentially been extended by a couple of days. In the process, the crew set a new space endurance record of eighteen days, eclipsing the fourteen-day mark set by Gemini 7 almost five years earlier.

  Back at Star City, DOS mission training continued. The plan was to select two primary crews to fly to the first station to conduct missions of nearly a month in length, with the second crew backing up the first one on the initial mission. A third crew was assigned to act as a backup for the second crew and would train to fly to the second DOS station about a year later with a fourth crew training for the second DOS-2 mission.

  The cosmonaut corps in those days was made up of a few of the old group of air force officers from the Vostok and Voskhod flights. In addition to that, there were some cosmonauts selected from the strategic rocketry forces and engineers who joined the program from Korolev’s bureau. All were considered to be good candidates for spaceflight, but crew selection turned out to be a political tug-of-war between General Kamanin, the air force officer in charge of the cosmonaut training; Mishin; and several agencies with competing agendas.

  Gen. Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin was not a simple bureaucrat. He was awarded Hero of the Soviet Union in 1934 when he successfully led an aircraft evacuation of the crew of the SS Chelyuskin after the ship was stranded and crushed by arctic pack ice. During World War II, Kamanin was a colonel in command of air divisions that fought in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, with Kamanin himself flying combat missions periodically. Tactically, he came up with some very innovative strategies and personally led an IL-2 Sturmovik aircraft attack on a massive German airfield in the occupied town of Lviv, Ukraine, with only light losses to his unit. For this action, Kamanin was awarded the Order of Kutuzov, one of the highest decorations in Soviet and later Russian military aviation. General Kamanin had been assigned to head the cosmonaut training office since the program’s early days. This gave him broad powers over many portions of the Soviet space program and the military personnel involved with it, from approval of equipment on spacecraft to crew selection to spacecraft recovery at the end of the mission.

  The feud between Kamanin and Mishin led to some back-and-forth in the selection process for the first DOS crews. Kamanin wanted at least two military officers to fly, and Mishin wanted his engineer-cosmonauts to fly. At the same time, Kamanin also objected to Mishin wanting to assign two cosmonauts with flight experience to each mission when so many others (particularly air force ones) had not yet flown even one mission.

  Eventually, the crew nominations were whittled down to four groups of three cosmonauts, with the list being finalized in early 1971. The crew of Soyuz 10, flying the first mission to the new station, would be veteran cosmonauts Vladimir Shatalov and Aleksei Yeliseyev. Joining them would be engineering cosmonaut and flight engineer Nikolai Rukavishnikov. For Soyuz 11, first-EVA veteran Alexei Leonov would command the flight. He would be joined by Pyotr Kolodin and Soyuz 6 cosmonaut Valery Kubasov. The third crew, planning to fly to the second DOS station, would be Georgi Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev, with Volkov being the only veteran on that crew, having flown on Soyuz 8. The fourth crew included rookies Alexei Gubarev and Anatoli Voronov and veteran Vitali Sevastyanov from Soyuz 9.

  Salyut Flies!

  On 15 April 1971 a Proton rocket with the first DOS station sat ready for launch. While smaller elements of the station were shrouded with aerodynamic covers to prevent damage during ascent, the large-diameter working compartment was visible and bore the name Zarya in big red letters on the side of its green external insulation. The word meaning “sunrise” in Russian, it was intended to be the name of the station, although the Kremlin expressed their dissatisfaction with it and pointed out that the Chinese were working on a rocket design with apparently the same name. “Zarya” was also a radio call sign used by the control center when in contact with manned spacecraft. So a new name had to be selected. After discussions, the name Salyut was suggested and agreed on unanimously. In Russian, the word means “salutation” or “greeting,” and it also had a secondary meaning as a “salute” to the late Yuri Gagarin since his flight as the first man in space had occurred exactly ten years before the scheduled launch day. The salute in memory of Gagarin also seemed an appropriate tribute since the cosmonaut had died in a plane crash several years earlier and was still mourned by many. The timing of the launch in this new era in Soviet spaceflight seemed perfect. Discussions were made about repainting the name on the side of the station, until Boris Chertok pointed out that nobody would see the name anyway once the vehicle
was in orbit. So the name Zarya remained.

  On early Monday morning, 19 April 1971, the Proton rocket carrying Salyut rose from its launchpad at the Baikonur complex and headed for orbit. Salyut was injected into a 200 by 222 kilometer orbit at an inclination of 51.6 degrees. Everything seemed to go well, although telemetry indicated that the launch cover designed to protect the scientific instruments and telescopes located in the station’s working compartment had not jettisoned. If that cover could not be released, it meant that a large portion of the planned telescope observations could not be carried out.

  The crew of Soyuz 10 was ready to launch on 22 April, but the countdown was aborted when an umbilical plug did not come free. Heavy rain before the launch and ice condensation from the liquid oxygen tanks had frozen the plug into place. The fully fueled rocket was kept on the pad, and plans were made to try again the next day. This time, the launch was successful, and Soyuz 10 rocketed into orbit at 02:54. Moscow time. In keeping with a mission radio call sign protocol for Soyuz flights, the crew of Soyuz 10 was known as “Granit” (Russian for “Granite”).

  Shatalov was the most experienced cosmonaut when it came to rendezvous and docking, and he would need all his experience for this flight. As planned, the Soyuz spacecraft would spend two days in a slightly higher orbit than Salyut as it waited for the station to catch up on its lower orbital path. An initial rendezvous burn was made on the fourth orbit to adjust the path of the Soyuz; from that time on, it was a matter of waiting for the distance to close.