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Soyuz-T 9 • Salyut 7 | September 17-October 22, 1983 | |
| Soyuz rocket launch failure. The Protons expected visitors in late September. On September 26 a Soyuz spacecraft bearing Vladimir Titov and Gennadi Strekalov stood atop a Soyuz booster at Baikonur Cosmodrome. About 90 sec before planned launch time, the booster caught fire. Titov and Strekalov, who had been unable to dock with Salyut 7 on the Soyuz-T 8 mission, were plucked free of the booster, which subsequently exploded.[1] | |||
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Soyuz-T 9 • Salyut 7 • Progress 18 | October 22-November 13, 1983 | |
| First and second EVAs—solar array augmentations. During his EVA of July 30, 1982, Valentin Lebedev tested space assembly and disassembly techniques to pave the way for the augmentation of Salyut 7’s solar arrays. The station was designed to have its arrays augmented as their efficiency gradually diminished. The actual installation of the augmentation panels was to be done by “the new crew on the next mission.”[2] The arrays were delivered by Cosmos 1443. However, the next mission, the three-person Soyuz-T 8, was unable to dock. The Protons docked with Salyut 7 in Soyuz-T 9, and removed the panels from Cosmos 1443 before casting it off. Soyuz-T 8 crewmen Titov and Strekalov, who were trained for the panel augmentation EVA, were then grounded by the September 26 Soyuz booster explosion. It was up to Lyakhov and Alexandrov to carry out the much-delayed augmentation EVAs. They used two Yakor foot restraints installed on Salyut 7 near the base of the solar array. Their first EVA, on November 1, lasted 2 hr, 49 min. The cosmonauts added a new panel to one edge of Salyut 7’s top (center) array. The second EVA, on November 3, was a repeat of the first. It lasted 2 hr, 55 min. Together the two new panels increased Salyut 7’s available electricity by 50%. The Protons replaced air lost through the EVAs from tanks in Progress 18 before casting it off.[3][4] Progress 18’s main engine raised Salyut 7’s altitude to 356 km by 326 km on November 4. | |||
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Soyuz-T 9 • Salyut 7 | November 13-23, 1983 |
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Salyut 7 | November 23, 1983-February 9, 1984 |
- ↑ “Emergency Rescue during Soyuz-T 8 Failure Recalled,” abstract in JPRS Report, Science & Technology, USSR:Space, August 19, 1987, p. 91, of an article in Krasnaya Zvezda, May 30, 1987, p. 4. [In the title the JPRS Report incorrectly identifies the Soyuz-T 10a pad abort as Soyuz-T 8, but all other information appears accurate.]
- ↑ Lebedev, p. 153.
- ↑ “Manned Flight Chronology,” USSR Report, Space (JPRSUSP-84-001), January 26, 1984, p. 2-3. Compilation of transcripts of English-language broadcast reports from the Soviet news agency TASS, November 1, 3, 1984.
- ↑ Johnson, 1984, p. 45.
