Accidents and emergencies on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Accidents and emergencies on Russian Soyuz spacecraft “Connection ends

On June 30, 1971, the first orbital crew in the history of astronautics space station "Firework" as part of Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkova And Viktor Patsaev died upon returning to Earth. This tragic incident became the largest in the history of Russian cosmonautics - the entire crew died.

The Soviet and American space programs operated in conditions of extremely fierce competition. Each side strived at all costs to get ahead of the competitor and become the first. At first, the palm belonged to the USSR: the first launch of an artificial Earth satellite, the first launch of a man into space, the first man in outer space, the first flight of a female cosmonaut remained with the Soviet Union.

The Americans focused on the lunar race and won. Although the USSR had the theoretical opportunity to be the first, the program was too unreliable and the likelihood of disaster was too high, so the Soviet leadership did not dare to risk the lives of its cosmonauts. The Soviet lunar cosmonaut squad was transferred to training under the Docking program for the first flight to the orbital station.

Having safely landed on the Moon, the Americans proved to themselves that they too could do something, after which they became overly interested in the Earth’s satellite. The USSR at that time was already developing a project for a manned orbital station and won another victory in this area, launching its orbital station two years earlier than the United States did.

The Salyut station was planned to be launched into orbit by the beginning of the 24th Congress of the CPSU, but they were a little late. The station was launched into orbit only on April 19, 1971, ten days after the closing of the congress.

"Soyuz-10"

Almost immediately the first crew was sent to the orbital station. On April 24, five days after the station entered orbit, the Soyuz-10 spacecraft launched from Baikonur. On board were the ship's commander Vladimir Shatalov, flight engineer Alexey Eliseev and test engineer Nikolai Rukavishnikov.

This was a very experienced crew. Shatalov and Eliseev had already made two flights on Soyuz spacecraft; only Rukavishnikov was new to space. It was planned that Soyuz-10 would successfully dock with the orbital station, after which the cosmonauts would stay there for three weeks.

But everything didn't go as planned. The ship arrived safely at the station and began docking, but then problems began. The docking port pin engaged with the station, but the automation failed and the correction engines started working, causing the Soyuz to sway and the docking station to break.

There could no longer be any question of docking. Moreover, the entire Salyut station program was in jeopardy, since the cosmonauts did not know how to get rid of the docking pin. It could have been “shot”, but this would have made it impossible for any other ship to dock with the Salyut and would have meant the collapse of the entire program. Design engineers who were on Earth got involved and advised installing a jumper and using it to open the lock and remove the Soyuz pin. After several hours, this was finally done - and the astronauts went home.

Crew change

Preparations for the Soyuz-11 flight have begun. This crew was slightly less experienced than the previous one. None of the astronauts have been in space more than once. But the crew commander was Alexey Leonov, the first person to perform a spacewalk. In addition to him, the crew included flight engineer Valery Kubasov and engineer Pyotr Kolodin.

For several months they trained in docking both manually and automatically, because it was impossible to lose face for the second time in a row and return from the flight without docking.

At the beginning of June, the departure date was determined. At a meeting of the Politburo, the date was approved, as was the composition of the crew, which everyone unequivocally certified as the most skillful. But the unimaginable happened. Two days before the launch from Baikonur, sensational news came: during a standard pre-flight medical examination, doctors took Kubasov an X-ray and discovered a slight darkening in one of the lungs. Everything pointed to an acute tuberculosis process. True, it remained unclear how it could be viewed, because such a process does not develop in one day, and the astronauts underwent thorough and regular medical examinations. One way or another, Kubasov was not allowed to fly into space.

But both the State Commission and the Politburo have already approved the composition of the crew. What to do? After all, in the Soviet program, cosmonauts prepared for flights in groups of threes, and if one dropped out, then it was necessary to change the entire team, since it was believed that the threes had already worked together, and replacing one crew member would lead to a violation of consistency.

But, on the other hand, no one before in the history of astronautics has changed the crew less than two days before departure. How to choose correct solution in such situation? There was a heated argument between the curators of the space program. Assistant to the Air Force Commander-in-Chief for Space Nikolai Kamanin insisted that Leonov’s crew was experienced and if the retired Kubasov was replaced by Volkov, who also had experience in space flights, then nothing terrible would happen and the coordination of actions would not be disrupted.

However, designer Mishin, one of the developers of Salyut and Soyuz, advocated a complete change of the troika. He believed that the backup crew would be much better prepared and worked together than the main crew, but which had undergone a change in crew on the eve of the flight. In the end, Mishin’s point of view won. Leonov's crew was removed and replaced with a backup crew consisting of commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, flight engineer Vladislav Volkov and research engineer Viktor Patsaev. None of them had been in space, with the exception of Volkov, who had already flown on one of the Soyuz.

Leonov's crew took the removal from the flight very painfully. Boris Chertok later recalled the words of designer Mishin:

"Oh, what a difficult conversation I had with Leonov and Kolodin!- he told us. — Leonov accused me of allegedly deliberately not wanting to replace Kubasov with Volynov in order to once again drag Volkov into space. Kolodin said that he felt this way until last day that he will not be allowed into space under any pretext. Kolodin says: “I’m their black sheep. They’re all pilots, and I’m a rocket scientist.”

None of the angry cosmonauts could have imagined that an erroneous X-ray (Kubasov did not have any tuberculosis and later he successfully flew into space) saved their lives. But then the situation escalated to the limit. Chertok personally observed this picture:

“At the State Commission, I found myself next to Kolodin. He sat with his head bowed low, nervously clenching and unclenching his fingers, nodules playing on his face. He was not the only one nervous. Both crews felt unwell. The first was shocked by the removal from the flight, the second by the sudden change of fate. After the flight, the second crew had to climb. marble staircase The Kremlin Palace to fanfare, Glinka's music, and receive heroes' stars. But there was no joy on their faces."

Flight

The Soyuz-11 spacecraft launched from Baikonur on June 6, 1971. The astronauts were worried not only because two of them had never been in space before, but also because of the magnificent farewell: the day before departure, the mourners staged a real rally at which they gave speeches.

Nevertheless, the launch of the ship took place as usual and without any failures. The astronauts successfully and without problems docked with the orbital station. It was an exciting moment, because they were to become the first earthlings on board the space station.

The cosmonauts were safely accommodated in the orbital station, which, although small, seemed huge to them after the incredibly cramped Soyuz. The first week they got used to the new environment. Among other things, the cosmonauts on the Salyut had a television connection with the Earth.

On June 16, an emergency occurred at the station. The astronauts smelled a strong burning smell. Volkov contacted Earth and reported the fire. The issue of urgent evacuation from the station was being considered, but Dobrovolsky decided to take his time and turn off some devices, after which the burning smell went away.

In total, the astronauts spent 23 days in orbit. They had a fairly rich program of research and experiments. In addition, they had to mothball the station for the next crews.

On the evening of June 29, the crew successfully undocking with the Salyut and headed home.

Catastrophe

In general, the flight went well - no one expected any emergencies. The crew made contact and conducted an orientation. As it turned out, this was the last communication session with the crew. As expected, at 1:35 the braking propulsion system was activated. At 1:47, the descent module separated from the instrument and service compartments. At 1:49 the crew was supposed to get in touch and report the successful separation of the descent module. The descent vehicle did not have a telemetry system and no one on Earth knew what was happening to the astronauts. It was planned that immediately after the separation Dobrovolsky would get in touch. The silence on the radio greatly surprised the experts, because the crew was very talkative and sometimes spoke to the Earth much more than the situation required.

The return to Earth took place as planned, without incidents, so at first there was no reason to believe that anything had happened to the crew. The most likely version was a malfunction of the radio equipment.

At 1:54 a.m., air defense systems detected the descent module. At an altitude of 7 thousand meters, the main parachute of the descent vehicle, which was equipped with an antenna, opened. The astronauts were required to contact either HF or VHF channels and report the situation. But they were silent, not responding to requests from Earth. This was already alarming; none of the safely returned Soyuz had problems with communication at this stage.

At about 2:05, the helicopters meeting the descent vehicle discovered it and reported it to the Mission Control Center. Ten minutes later the device landed safely. Externally, the device did not have any damage, but the crew still did not make contact and showed no signs of life. It was already clear that some kind of emergency had occurred, but there was still hope that the astronauts might have lost consciousness, but were still alive.

Immediately after landing, a meeting helicopter landed next to the device, and two minutes later the rescuers were already opening the hatch of the device. Chertok recalled:

"The descent vehicle was lying on its side. There was no external damage. They knocked on the wall - no one responded. They quickly opened the hatch. All three were sitting in chairs in calm poses. There were blue spots on their faces. Streaks of blood from the nose and ears. They pulled them out of the spacecraft Dobrovolsky was still warm. Doctors continue artificial respiration."

Attempts by doctors to resuscitate the crew through artificial respiration and cardiac massage were unsuccessful. An autopsy showed that the crew died from decompression sickness caused by a sharp drop in pressure in the descent module.

Investigation

The circumstances of the death clearly indicated that the ship was depressurized. The very next day, studies of the descent module began, but all attempts to detect a leak failed. Kamanin recalled:

“We closed the hatch and all other standard openings in the ship’s hull, created a pressure in the cabin that exceeded atmospheric pressure by 100 millimeters, and... did not find the slightest sign of leakage. We increased overpressure up to 150 and then up to 200 millimeters. After maintaining the ship under such pressure for an hour and a half, we were finally convinced that the cabin was completely sealed."

But, if the device was completely sealed, then how could depressurization occur? There was only one option left. The leak may have occurred through one of the vent valves. But this valve opened only after the parachute opened to equalize the pressure, how could it open during the separation of the descent module?

The only theoretical option: the shock wave and explosions of the squibs during separation of the descent vehicle forced the valve opening squib to fire prematurely. But the Soyuz never had such problems (and in general there was not a single case of depressurization on both manned and unmanned ships). Moreover, after the disaster, experiments simulating this situation were carried out many times, but the valve never opened abnormally due to a shock wave or the detonation of squibs. No experiment has ever reproduced this situation. But, since there were no other explanations, this version was accepted as the official one. It was stipulated that this event was classified as extremely unlikely, since it could not be reproduced under experimental conditions. The commission was able to approximately reconstruct the events that took place inside the descent vehicle. After the normal separation of the apparatus, the cosmonauts discovered depressurization, as the pressure was rapidly dropping. They had less than a minute to find and eliminate her. Crew commander Dobrovolsky checks the hatch, but it is sealed. Trying to detect a leak by sound, the astronauts turn off radio transmitters and equipment. Most likely, they managed to detect the leak, but were no longer strong enough to close the valve. The drop in pressure was too strong, and within a minute the astronauts lost consciousness, and after about two minutes they were dead.

Everything would have been different if the crew had spacesuits. But the Soviet cosmonauts returned in the descent module without them. Both Korolev and Mishin opposed this. The suits were very bulky, as was the life support equipment they required, and the ships were already too cramped. Therefore, we had to choose: either an additional crew member, or spacesuits, or a radical reconstruction of the ship and the descent module.

Results

The dead cosmonauts were buried in the Kremlin wall. At that time, it was the largest disaster in space in terms of the number of victims. For the first time, an entire crew died. The tragedy of Soyuz-11 led to the fact that flights under this program were frozen for more than two years.

During this time, the program itself was radically revised. Since then, astronauts have been required to return back wearing protective suits. In order to gain more space in the lander, it was decided to abandon the third crew member. The layout of the controls was changed so that the astronaut could reach all the most important buttons and levers without getting up.

After modifications were made, the Soyuz program established itself as one of the most reliable and is still operating successfully.

The Americans focused on the lunar race and won. Although the USSR had the theoretical opportunity to be the first, the program was too unreliable and the likelihood of disaster was too high, so the Soviet leadership did not dare to risk the lives of its cosmonauts. The Soviet lunar cosmonaut squad was transferred to training under the Docking program for the first flight to the orbital station.

Having safely landed on the Moon, the Americans proved to themselves that they too could do something, after which they became overly interested in the Earth’s satellite. The USSR at that time was already developing a project for a manned orbital station and won another victory in this area, launching its orbital station two years earlier than the United States did.

The Salyut station was planned to be launched into orbit by the beginning of the 24th Congress of the CPSU, but they were a little late. The station was launched into orbit only on April 19, 1971, ten days after the closing of the congress.

"Soyuz-10"

This was a very experienced crew. Shatalov and Eliseev had already made two flights on Soyuz spacecraft; only Rukavishnikov was new to space. It was planned that Soyuz-10 would successfully dock with the orbital station, after which the cosmonauts would stay there for three weeks.

But everything didn't go as planned. The ship arrived safely at the station and began docking, but then problems began. The docking hub pin engaged with the station, but the automation failed and the correction engines started working, causing the Soyuz to sway and the docking hub to break.

There could no longer be any question of docking. Moreover, the entire Salyut station program was in jeopardy, since the cosmonauts did not know how to get rid of the docking pin. It could have been “shot”, but this would have made it impossible for any other ship to dock with the Salyut and would have meant the collapse of the entire program. Design engineers on Earth got involved and advised installing a jumper and using it to open the lock and remove the Soyuz pin. After several hours, this was finally done - and the astronauts went home.

Crew change

For several months they trained in docking both manually and automatically, because it was impossible to lose face for the second time in a row and return from the flight without docking.

At the beginning of June, the departure date was determined. At a meeting of the Politburo, the date was approved, as was the composition of the crew, which everyone unequivocally certified as the most skillful. But the unimaginable happened. Two days before the launch from Baikonur, sensational news came: during a standard pre-flight medical examination, doctors took Kubasov an X-ray and discovered a slight darkening in one of the lungs. Everything pointed to an acute tuberculosis process. True, it remained unclear how it could be viewed, because such a process does not develop in one day, and the astronauts underwent thorough and regular medical examinations. One way or another, Kubasov was not allowed to fly into space.

But both the State Commission and the Politburo have already approved the composition of the crew. What to do? After all, in the Soviet program, cosmonauts prepared for flights in groups of threes, and if one dropped out, then it was necessary to change the entire team, since it was believed that the threes had already worked together, and replacing one crew member would lead to a violation of consistency.

But, on the other hand, no one before in the history of astronautics has changed the crew less than two days before departure. How to choose the right solution in such a situation? There was a heated argument between the curators of the space program. Assistant to the Air Force Commander-in-Chief for Space Nikolai Kamanin insisted that Leonov’s crew was experienced and if the retired Kubasov was replaced by Volkov, who also had experience in space flights, then nothing terrible would happen and the coordination of actions would not be disrupted.

However, designer Mishin, one of the developers of Salyut and Soyuz, advocated a complete change of the troika. He believed that the backup crew would be much better prepared and worked together than the main crew, but which had undergone a change in crew on the eve of the flight. In the end, Mishin’s point of view won. Leonov's crew was removed and replaced with a backup crew consisting of commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, flight engineer Vladislav Volkov and research engineer Viktor Patsaev. None of them had been in space, with the exception of Volkov, who had already flown on one of the Soyuzs.

Leonov's crew took the removal from the flight very painfully. Boris Chertok later recalled the words of designer Mishin: “Oh, what a difficult conversation I had with Leonov and Kolodin! - he told us. — Leonov accused me of allegedly deliberately not wanting to replace Kubasov with Volynov in order to once again drag Volkov into space. Kolodin said that he felt this way until the last day, that he would not be allowed into space under any pretext. Kolodin says: “I am their black sheep. They are all pilots, and I am a rocket scientist.”

None of the angry cosmonauts could have imagined that an erroneous X-ray (Kubasov did not have any tuberculosis and later he successfully flew into space) saved their lives. But then the situation escalated to the limit. Chertok personally observed this picture: “At the State Commission, I found myself next to Kolodin. He sat with his head bowed low, nervously clenching and unclenching his fingers, nodules playing on his face. He wasn't the only one nervous. Both crews felt unwell. The first was shocked by the removal from the flight, the second by the sudden change in fate. After the flight, the second crew had to climb the marble staircase of the Kremlin Palace to fanfare and Glinka’s music, and receive heroes’ stars. But there was no joy on their faces.”

Flight

Nevertheless, the launch of the ship took place as usual and without any failures. The astronauts successfully and without problems docked with the orbital station. It was an exciting moment, because they were to become the first earthlings on board the space station.

The cosmonauts were safely accommodated in the orbital station, which, although small, seemed huge to them after the incredibly cramped Soyuz. The first week they got used to the new environment. Among other things, the cosmonauts on the Salyut had a television connection with the Earth.

On June 16, an emergency occurred at the station. The astronauts smelled a strong burning smell. Volkov contacted Earth and reported the fire. The issue of urgent evacuation from the station was being considered, but Dobrovolsky decided to take his time and turn off some devices, after which the burning smell went away.

In total, the astronauts spent 23 days in orbit. They had a fairly rich program of research and experiments. In addition, they had to mothball the station for the next crews.

Catastrophe

The return to Earth took place as planned, without incidents, so at first there was no reason to believe that anything had happened to the crew. The most likely version was a malfunction of the radio equipment.

At 1:54 a.m., air defense systems detected the descent module. At an altitude of 7 thousand meters, the main parachute of the descent vehicle, which was equipped with an antenna, opened. The astronauts were required to contact either HF or VHF channels and report the situation. But they were silent, not responding to requests from Earth. This was already alarming; none of the safely returned Soyuz had problems with communication at this stage.

At about 2:05, the helicopters meeting the descent vehicle discovered it and reported it to the Mission Control Center. Ten minutes later the device landed safely. Externally, the device did not have any damage, but the crew still did not make contact and showed no signs of life. It was already clear that some kind of emergency had occurred, but there was still hope that the astronauts might have lost consciousness, but were still alive.

Immediately after landing, a meeting helicopter landed next to the device, and two minutes later the rescuers were already opening the hatch of the device. Chertok recalled: “The descent vehicle was lying on its side. There was no external damage. They knocked on the wall - no one responded. The hatch was quickly opened. All three are sitting in chairs in calm poses. There are blue spots on the faces. Bleeding from the nose and ears. They were pulled out of the SA. Dobrovolsky was still warm. Doctors continue artificial respiration.”

Attempts by doctors to resuscitate the crew through artificial respiration and cardiac massage were unsuccessful. An autopsy showed that the crew died from decompression sickness caused by a sharp drop in pressure in the descent module.

Investigation

But, if the device was completely sealed, then how could depressurization occur? There was only one option left. The leak may have occurred through one of the vent valves. But this valve opened only after the parachute opened to equalize the pressure, how could it open during the separation of the descent module?

The only theoretical option: the shock wave and explosions of the squibs during separation of the descent vehicle forced the valve opening squib to fire prematurely. But the Soyuz never had such problems (and in general there was not a single case of depressurization on both manned and unmanned ships). Moreover, after the disaster, experiments simulating this situation were carried out many times, but the valve never opened abnormally due to a shock wave or the detonation of squibs. No experiment has ever reproduced this situation. But, since there were no other explanations, this version was accepted as the official one. It was stipulated that this event was classified as extremely unlikely, since it could not be reproduced under experimental conditions.

The commission was able to approximately reconstruct the events that took place inside the descent module. After the normal separation of the apparatus, the cosmonauts discovered depressurization, as the pressure was rapidly dropping. They had less than a minute to find and eliminate her. Crew commander Dobrovolsky checks the hatch, but it is sealed. Trying to detect a leak by sound, the astronauts turn off radio transmitters and equipment. Most likely, they managed to detect the leak, but were no longer strong enough to close the valve. The drop in pressure was too strong, and within a minute the astronauts lost consciousness, and after about two minutes they were dead.

Everything would have been different if the crew had spacesuits. But the Soviet cosmonauts returned in the descent module without them. Both Korolev and Mishin opposed this. The suits were very bulky, as was the life support equipment they required, and the ships were already too cramped. Therefore, we had to choose: either an additional crew member, or spacesuits, or a radical reconstruction of the ship and the descent module.

Results

During this time, the program itself was radically revised. Since then, astronauts have been required to return back wearing protective suits. In order to gain more space in the lander, it was decided to abandon the third crew member. The layout of the controls was changed so that the astronaut could reach all the most important buttons and levers without getting up.

After modifications were made, the Soyuz program established itself as one of the most reliable and is still operating successfully.

1971, June 30 - the Soyuz-11 descent module depressurized in the upper layers of the atmosphere. All crew members - Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Patsayev - died.

1971, April 19 - the world's first long-term orbital station, Salyut-1, was launched into space in the Soviet Union. The history of this station is full of drama. It started with the fact that when it was launched into orbit, the compartment with scientific equipment, where there was a solar telescope and other astrophysical instruments, did not open. The compartment could not be unlocked.

Next, it was necessary to work out the technique of docking the station and the Soyuz transport ship. The first such flight took place on April 23, 1971. V. Shatalov, A. Eliseev and N. Rukavishnikov on the Soyuz-10 ship moored to the station, but after five and a half hours of joint flight the devices had to be separated: due to problems in the docking station The cosmonauts failed to board the Salyut and returned to Earth.

It was the turn of the next crew - A. Leonov, V. Kubasov and P. Kolodin. Their backups were G. Dobrovolsky, V. Volkov and V. Patsaev. In May 1971, the preparation of the crews for the flight - its duration should exceed the famous 18-day flight by A. Nikolaev and V. Sevastyanov - came to an end. Everything went well: the cosmonauts went to Baikonur, “settled in” the transport ship and the real ship.

Crew replacement

Three days before the launch, the crews had to undergo a pre-flight medical examination. And here the unexpected happened: doctors discovered a small inflammatory focus in Kubasov’s lungs. The cosmonaut felt fine, there was no sting, so the doctors’ verdict was met with hostility - after all, he was supposed to be part of the main crew and had already “felt” the start, and now he was, in fact, removed from the flight.

The chairman of the State Commission, Kerim Kerimov, listened to the report of the doctors, to put it mildly, without enthusiasm: the removal of one cosmonaut from the flight meant, according to unwritten rules, the replacement of the entire crew, and this in turn entailed a whole range of work on the ship, which had already been prepared for the main crew. A. Leonov was also annoyed; he demanded that flight engineer Volkov fly instead of flight engineer Kubasov. But chief designer Mishin did not agree with him. In the end, it was decided that backups would fly - Dobrovolsky, Volkov, Patsayev.

According to Vera Aleksandrovna Patsaeva, her husband was very happy when he learned that he was flying to the station. “He really wanted to go to space. But their crew was the main one for the second flight to the Salyut station, and on this basis there were disagreements with Volkov. After all, Vladislav already had a flight behind him, was writing a book about it and did not want to rush.”

About six months before the tragedy, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev, together with their wives and children, were vacationing together in a boarding house in Istra. Vera Alexandrovna recalled how one day they sat up until late in the evening, opened up, and Vladislav admitted: “I’m glad I won’t fly to the first station.” - "Why?" - Patsayeva was surprised. “It was foretold that I would perish,” he replied.

1971, June 5 - on the eve of the flight, at the traditional meeting with the launch team of the cosmodrome (many traditions, like this one, were laid down by S.P. Korolev from the first flights into space), the commander of the spacecraft Dobrovolsky spoke. A. Leonov's crew took the position of backups.

Let’s give the Baikonur team their due: three days before the launch, they were able to carry out the entire range of work for the new crew.

Launch of Soyuz-11

Soyuz-11 on the launch pad

June 6: a brief report from the commander - and now the cosmonauts appeared on the upper platform of the service farms. Finally, farewell waves of hands, last glances at the Earth before takeoff. Soyuz-11 launched exactly at the scheduled time - at 7.55.

A day later, Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev, already on the Salyut, began to implement the program. And it was fascinating: for the first time, the crew was creating, in essence, a long-term orbital laboratory. Moreover, the main task - automatic rendezvous with the Salyut-1 station, docking and transfer of the crew to the orbital station - has already been completed.

Flight

The crew is not destined to talk about their flight. But the surviving documents make it possible to recreate day by day the event and the very atmosphere of the star voyage. Behind the usual “Everything is fine”, “There is complete order on board”, which invariably sounded in radio and television reports from orbit, there was grueling work, sometimes on the verge of the possible.

The astronauts completed a rich program of scientific, military, medical and technical experiments. At the same time, as was written later, something did not work out in the crew. In Dobrovolsky’s notebook, in particular, a note was found: “If this is compatibility, then what is incompatibility?” True, the commander did it in the first and most difficult week of his stay at the station: extreme conditions of weightlessness, annoying foreign odors on board the not yet inhabited station, a program planned literally to the minute. The astronauts worked around the clock, in shifts. And the overstrain of those days, apparently, had an effect.

There were some incidents. A fire occurred at the orbital station - power cables caught fire and acrid smoke poured out. The astronauts barely managed to get into the descent vehicle in time and had already begun preparing for an emergency evacuation.

“Dobrovolsky had a wonderful character: he could turn everything into a joke,” says V. Patsaeva. - Probably, not everyone knows that an emergency occurred on board the Salyut station - the wiring caught fire. Then Volkov transmitted a message to Earth: they have a fire, and they will descend. Georgy did not argue, although together with Vitya he did not stop looking for the cause of the fire. Finally they found her and eliminated her. The flight continued."

Return to Earth

By the end of June 29, everything is ready to return to Earth; the crew was congratulated on the successful completion of the program. After control checks of the sealing of the descent module before undocking, Soyuz-11 received the go-ahead to “departure” from the station. At 21.28 Moscow time, the Soyuz undocked from the Salyut.

Fragments of some communication sessions between the ground (call sign “Zarya”) and the crew (call sign “Yantar”) were first published on the pages of the Government Gazette:

"30 June. “Zarya”: “To the Ambers” - everyone; From undocking to landing, be sure to continuously report on your well-being and the results of your observations. Continuous reporting. Got it?

“Yantar-2” (V. Volkov): We understand, we understand... I see rain, I see rain! I saw it great. Shines.

"Zarya": Write down the time - 01.47.27.
"Yantar-2": While the Earth is not visible, not yet visible.
Zarya: How is orientation going?
"Yantar-2": We saw the Earth, we saw it!
"Zarya": Okay, don't rush.
"Yantar-2": "Zarya", I am "Yantar-2". We started orientation. The rain is hanging on the right.
"Yantar-2": Flies great, beautiful!
“Yantar-3” (V. Patsaev): “Zarya”, I’m third. I can see the horizon along the lower edge of the window.

“Zarya”: “Yantar”, I remind you once again of the orientation - zero - 180 degrees.

"Yantar-2": Zero - 180 degrees.
"Zarya": We understood correctly.
"Yantar-2": The "Descent" banner is lit.
"Zarya": Let it burn. Everything is fine. It burns correctly. The connection ends. Happily!"

Landing

The flight was still going on. On June 30, at 1.35, after the orientation of the Soyuz, the braking propulsion system was turned on. Having completed the estimated time and losing speed, the ship began to leave orbit. After aerodynamic braking in the atmosphere, the parachute opened normally, the soft landing engines fired, and the descent vehicle smoothly landed in the steppe of Central Kazakhstan, west of Mount Munly.

Devices measuring complex dispassionately recorded the duration of the expedition - 23 days, 18 hours, 21 minutes, 43 seconds. New world record.

Doctor Anatoly Lebedev, who then worked at the Cosmonaut Training Center, says:

“On June 30, at 1.35, Soyuz-11 turned on the braking propulsion system and began its descent to Earth. In our helicopter, we listened carefully to the radio communications of other search groups - who would see the ship first?

Finally, a laconic: “I see! I’ll accompany you!” - and an explosion of voices on the air. All the voices, except... Yes, exactly: one thing was surprising - none of the search service crews could contact the astronauts. Even then we thought: probably the sling antenna was not working, and therefore it was impossible to establish contact with the Soyuz crew.

In the end, we, the doctors, through the helicopter windows saw the white and orange canopy of the ship’s parachute, slightly silvery from the rising sun. We flew exactly to the landing site.

Silently (for us!) the soft landing engines of the Soyuz kicked up a cloud of dust, and the silky “foam” of the parachute system smoothly subsided. We sat down after the ship, about 50 - 100 meters away. What happens in such cases? You open the hatch of the descent vehicle, and from there - the voices of the crew. And here - the crunch of scale, the sound of metal, the chatter of helicopters and... silence from the ship.

I had to remove its commander, Georgy Dobrovolsky, from the ship first. I knew he was sitting in the middle chair. I won’t hide it, I didn’t recognize him: the cosmonauts grew beards during the flight (they had difficulty shaving), and unusual conditions descent also appears to have affected them appearance. Following Dobrovolsky, we took out Patsaev and Volkov.

Volkov was generally very handsome; his friends at Zvezdny called him Marcello, in honor of Mastroianni, the then and current film idol. Later, with some almost mystical feeling, I found his note in my home “archive” - we played before the flight, we didn’t finish the game, and he wrote on a piece of paper: “I’ll come back and finish the game.” “I’ll be back”... But all this is later.

The crew landed without signs of life

Georgy Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsaev and Vladislav Volkov

In the first moments nothing is clear; A quick inspection also did not make it possible to immediately give a conclusion about the condition of the crew: what happened during the seconds of radio silence while the descent vehicle’s ball was piercing the atmosphere?! All astronauts have almost normal body temperature.

And, to be honest, it’s not so much a misunderstanding - the thought of tragedy simply didn’t come close to anyone in those seconds. Our entire medical team deployed instantly. The presence of an experienced resuscitator from the Sklifosovsky Institute immediately determined the nature and means of assistance. Six doctors began performing artificial respiration and chest compressions.

One more minute... General Goreglyad, the head of the search and rescue group, asked me, I remember, briefly: “Well?!”

However, there is no need to decipher it: he, Goreglyad, needs to report something to the Chairman of the State Commission... This has never happened before: the ship is on Earth, all communication lines work right up to the Kremlin, and we are silent.

We continued to work, using everything we could.
One after another, helicopters landed near the ship, people froze in painful anticipation of news from working doctors. There was amazing silence. Impossible, completely impossible for such a moment during a normal landing!..

And again, General Goreglyad more strictly and loudly demanded from the doctors an opinion on the condition of the crew: “This is necessary for the report to the government!”

As if it needs to be repeated!
Even now I cannot forget the moment when my lips uttered a phrase that frightened me: “Tell me that the crew... that the crew landed without signs of life!” This sounded like a death sentence to my dear cosmonaut friends! Who knew that this very tragic formula would later be included in TASS reports. But just an hour and a half ago we heard radio communications from the crew; Then everything went fine until landing!

Causes of death of astronauts

What could have happened? Long before the launch, medical experts assumed that after a flight of such duration, there could be “difficulties in bearing overloads” during the descent. But not such a flight ending. All medical personnel continued to perform their duties until there were absolute signs of death of the crew ... "

A few days later, the results of deciphering the “black box” recordings became known. An analysis of the records of the autonomous recorder of the on-board measurement system showed that from the moment the living compartment was separated - at an altitude of more than 150 km - the pressure in the descent module began to fall and after 30-40 seconds. became almost zero. After 42 sec. After depressurization, the astronauts' hearts stopped.

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov says: “The error was inherent in the design. The cabin was depressurized during the shooting of the orbital compartment. When installing ball valves, instead of a force of 90 kg, the installers tightened them with a force of 60-65 kg. During the shooting of the orbital compartment, a large overload occurred, which forced these valves to operate, and they crumbled. A hole with a diameter of 20 mm was discovered. After 22 sec. The astronauts lost consciousness."

A valve that equalizes the pressure in the cabin with respect to the external atmosphere is provided in case the ship lands on water or lands with the hatch down. The supply of life support system resources is limited, and so that the astronauts do not experience a lack of oxygen, the valve “connected” the ship to the atmosphere. It was supposed to work during landing in normal mode only at an altitude of 4 km, but it worked in a vacuum.

Why did the valve open? After extensive testing and modeling of various situations, the commission put forward a version of spontaneous discovery, which became the only one. At this point, the investigation was essentially over.

The pressure in the astronauts' cabin dropped to almost zero within seconds. After the tragedy, one of the bosses expressed the idea: they say that the hole that had formed in the shell of the descent module could be closed... with a finger. But doing this is not as easy as it seems. All three were in seats, fastened with seat belts, as required by instructions during boarding. Together with Rukavishnikov, Leonov participated in a simulated landing. All conditions were simulated in the pressure chamber.

It turned out that in order to unfasten the seat belts and close the hole the size of a Soviet-era five-kopeck coin, the cosmonauts would have needed more than 30 seconds. They lost consciousness much earlier and could no longer do anything. Dobrovolsky, apparently, was trying to do something - he managed to pull off his seat belts; alas, there was not enough time for more.

The crew descended to the ground without spacesuits. This decision was made personally by Korolev before the launch of Voskhod. And it’s impossible to accommodate three people in spacesuits in the Soyuz. However, there have never been problems with airtightness in any of the flights of Vostoks, Voskhods, unmanned or manned Soyuz.

After the deaths of Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev, the cosmonauts began flying in special suits. Recommendations have been urgently developed to guarantee the safety of people in the event of depressurization of the descent module.

Georgy Timofeevich Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Nikolaevich Volkov and Viktor Ivanovich Patsaev entered the history of astronautics as the first crew of the first orbital station “Salyut”.

Hero-cosmonauts were buried near the Kremlin wall.

On June 6, 1971, we witnessed the eighteenth launch of the manned spacecraft Soyuz-11. This happened at 7:55 a.m. at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The crew of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft, consisting of commander G. T. Dobrovolsky, flight engineer V. N. Volkov and test engineer V. I. Patsaev, was given a large and responsible task by the State Commission - to dock with the orbital scientific station "Salyut" , go to its premises and carry out the planned scientific and technical research and experiments for many days.

Scientists, engineers, technicians, workers worked day and night near these unique devices, preparing them to perform important work in space orbits.

For the first time in the history of active human exploration of space, our scientists managed to solve a complex scientific and technical problem - to create an orbital manned station. This required years of persistent, persistent work by many teams. We know that in January 1969, as a result of the docking of two manned multi-seat spacecraft Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5, an experimental space station was created for the first time in the world.

The successful space flight of Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 made it possible to solve many scientific and technical problems that are of great practical importance for the creation of future orbital stations.

We know that the human body is affected by many factors during space flight: overloads, vibrations, noise and, of course, weightlessness.

Zero gravity - a big problem for scientists from many countries of the world. We have already said that the astronauts who flew into space and experienced this unusual condition felt differently. Some felt a pleasant lightness, others experienced the illusion of falling, turning upside down, loss of orientation in space, and for some, weightlessness caused severe bouts of “seasickness.” Therefore, it is no coincidence that a number of experiments in space were carried out in the Soviet Union and the United States involving long-term stays of humans and animals in a state of weightlessness.

During a 14-day flight on the Gemini 7 spacecraft in 1965, American cosmonauts Borman and Lovell, as a result of some dehydration, lost 4.3 and 2.7 kilograms in weight, respectively. The cosmonauts experienced irritation of the mucous membrane of the nose and eyes and a short-term decrease in tone; one of them (Bormann) slept restlessly.

In 1966, in the Soviet Union, the Cosmos-110 satellite was launched into the orbit of an artificial Earth satellite with experimental animals, which, 22 days after completing the program, landed on the 330th orbit. It was found that at the beginning of the flight the animals experienced a decrease in volume muscle mass, impaired coordination of movements, rapid pulse, etc. Scientists also determined that at the beginning of the flight there was an increased release of calcium salts from the body, the animals lost weight due to a decrease in muscle mass and some dehydration. It is known that if a person loses 20% of salt, they experience convulsions, and if a person’s body loses 15% of water, he may die.

Long before man's flight into space, different opinions were expressed about the influence of weightlessness on the state of the human body and on his mental activity. During the first flights, the cosmonauts confirmed that this phenomenon indeed brought a lot of unpleasant sensations to some of them.

If the world's first cosmonaut Yu. A. Gagarin, who was in weightlessness for about one hour, performed his functions without much difficulty, then G. S. Titov, as we have already said, suffered this condition with some unpleasant sensations (dizziness, illusions " swimming" at sharp turn headaches, loss of appetite, etc.). On subsequent flights, the astronauts each endured the state of weightlessness differently. But basically all the cosmonauts who flew survived it without any noticeable deterioration in their health. True, A. G. Nikolaev and V. I. Sevastyanov, after completing an 18-day flight on the Soyuz-9 spacecraft, slowly adapted to earthly conditions. It took them some time to transition to normal conditions of earthly life. For several days, the body of these astronauts adapted to the conditions of weightlessness, after which they were able to perform any operations as easily as on Earth.

From this we can conclude that the process of adaptation to weightlessness during flight in space, like the process of readaptation on Earth, took place gradually among astronauts, in several stages, depending on individual characteristics body.

As a result of space flights by Soviet and American cosmonauts, a large amount of scientific material has now been accumulated on the effect of weightlessness on human psychophysiological functions. However, it is too early to say that the problem has been solved.

But let's return to the flight of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. On June 7, the cosmonauts had to carry out the most critical stage of the flight - docking. In the morning, on the Soyuz-11 control panel, the crew turned on a special program, with the help of which they were to carry out a rendezvous with the Salyut station. At 7 hours 27 minutes 47 seconds, when the distance between the ship and the station was 6 kilometers, the engine turned on for 20 seconds, and the devices automatically approached each other to within 100 meters. Then the crew carried out all the control of rendezvous and mooring manually. At 8:58 a.m., the docking of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft with the Salyut station was completed. The crew carefully checked the tightness of the connection between the ship and the station. After this, the pressure in their compartments was equalized. Having made sure that everything was normal, test engineer Viktor Patsayev was the first to board the Salyut, followed by the rest of the crew. This happened on June 7 at 10:45 am.

For the first time, a crew was delivered aboard a scientific orbital station by transport ship. Since that time, the first manned orbital scientific station began to operate in space. Station commander Georgy Dobrovolsky reported to Earth that the crew had begun work on board the Salyut.

On the first day of their stay at the station, the crew inspected all its premises and carried out reactivation, and then checked the scientific equipment. A manned scientific orbital station is an entire scientific laboratory. Its length is about 20 meters. The volume of all premises is more than 100 cubic meters. The weight together with the Soyuz-11 spacecraft is about 25 tons. Structurally, the station is designed so that the crew can conduct scientific, technical and medical-biological research and experiments for a long time. To correct the orbit, there are rocket propulsion systems on board.

At 11:02 a.m. on June 8, the crew made the first correction, as a result of which the altitude increased at apogee by 22 kilometers and at perigee by 29 kilometers. The next day, the cosmonauts adjusted the on-board scientific equipment and mothballed some systems on the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. The VShK (wide-angle cosmonaut sight), which is designed for orientation by the Sun and planets, was successfully tested. In addition, the crew carried out measurements of radiation levels on board the station. Each of the astronauts put on a special Penguin suit, which creates a certain load on the human musculoskeletal organs in a state of weightlessness.

So, round by round, the Salyut scientific orbital station continued its flight in space. The station's connection with the Mission Control Center was stable. The astronauts felt good. On June 10, the crew conducted medical and biological studies of the state of the cardiovascular system in zero gravity conditions. Using a special multichannel amplifying-converting device, functional samples were taken from the astronauts to determine the density of bone tissue and blood composition.

The station's onboard systems and scientific equipment worked normally. According to the established schedule, the cosmonauts regularly conducted television reports from on board the station. Flight engineer Vladislav Volkov and test engineer Viktor Patsayev repeatedly performed navigation measurements, based on the results of which the station’s orbital parameters were determined using an on-board digital computer.

At 7 hours 55 minutes on June 24, cosmonauts G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev, in terms of the duration and range of the space flight, achieved the results that were established over 18 days of flight by A. G. Nikolaev and V. I. Sevastyanov on the Soyuz-9 spacecraft.

Exactly two days later, i.e. June 26, when 20 days of flight had expired, the crew of the manned orbital scientific station became the owner of absolute world record achievements in the duration and range of space flight. By this time, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsaev had surpassed, in terms of the specified parameters, the world achievements previously established by their friends Andriyan Nikolaev and Vitaly Sevastyanov in the space flight from June 1 to 19, 1970 on the Soyuz-9 spacecraft. The cosmonauts on the Soyuz-11 spacecraft and the Salyut station made a total of about 340 orbits around our planet, spent more than 480 hours in space and covered a distance of 13,440,000 kilometers. There were less than four days left before the end of the flight program. On June 27 and 28, the cosmonauts once again checked all onboard systems of the station and the Soyuz-11 spacecraft and performed a number of medical and biological experiments. According to the cosmonauts' report, all onboard systems of the ship and station were working normally.

June 29, 1971—last day of flight. An order was received from Earth on board the orbital scientific station to complete the flight and prepare for landing. The astronauts, convinced of normal operation all systems of the ship and station, prepared for landing. G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev transferred logbooks and other materials scientific research from the Salyut station to the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. The astronauts took their jobs, strapped themselves in and then checked the operation of all onboard systems of the ship. In the Soyuz-11 compartments the pressure and temperature were normal. All equipment worked fine. Radio communication with the Earth was stable.

At 21 hours 28 minutes, the Soyuz-11 spacecraft was successfully undocking with the Salyut orbital station, which the crew reported to Earth. The Soyuz-11 spacecraft began its independent flight without the Salyut station. All systems of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft functioned normally. The flight of Soyuz-11 in outer space continued for about 4 hours before switching on automatic system orientation. At approximately 1 hour 10 minutes on June 30, 1971, the ship's attitude control system was turned on, and 25 minutes later, the braking propulsion system was turned on, having worked for the estimated time. The time has come for the descent vehicle to separate from the instrument and orbital compartments. Since that time, communication with the crew of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft has ceased. The descent module, which contained cosmonauts Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev, entered the dense layers of the atmosphere. At 2:02 a.m. the parachute system was activated. At an altitude of 9000 meters the parachute opened.

There is no connection with the astronauts. A group of helicopters from the search and rendezvous service was approaching the ship's landing site. Planes were circling in the air. From the Mi-6 helicopter in which we were, it was clearly visible how the cabin of the Soyuz-11 ship was descending smoothly, slowly swaying under the canopy of a large parachute. Near the ground, the soft-landing powder engines turned on. The Soyuz-11 cabin hovered for a moment and slowly sank to the ground.

I write down: “At 2 hours 15 minutes Moscow time, the Soyuz-11 descent vehicle with cosmonauts G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev landed.” We run to the landing site. The technical support team opens the hatch. We take Georgy Timofeevich Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Nikolaevich Volkov and Viktor Ivanovich Patsaev out of the cabin of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. Astronauts without signs of life. The doctors did everything that depended on them, but it was too late.

According to the preliminary conclusion of doctor Anatoly Aleksandrovich Lebedev at the landing site, it was established that the crew died from a sharp decrease in pressure in the ship’s cabin. As it turned out later, the crew of Soyuz 11 died as a result of a leak in the ship’s airtightness. USSR pilot-cosmonauts G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev fully completed the scientific research program. They made a huge contribution to the development of orbital manned flights.

Entries made by astronauts in flight logs, personal reports recorded on magnetic tape, and a large number of film frames filmed in space were studied by scientists.

During the 24 days of the flight, USSR pilot-cosmonauts G. T. Dobrovolsky, V. N. Volkov and V. I. Patsaev completed an extensive range of work of great scientific, technical and national economic practical importance. They tested in flight conditions complex system"Salyut-Soyuz", which have promising significance for other ships and stations that, following Soyuz-11, will go out into the vastness of the Universe.

The Soviet manned space program, which began with triumphs, began to falter in the second half of the 1960s. Stung by failures, the Americans threw enormous resources into competition with the Russians and began to get ahead Soviet Union.

Passed away in January 1966 Sergei Korolev, the man who was the main driver of the Soviet space program. In April 1967, a cosmonaut died during a test flight of the new Soyuz spacecraft. Vladimir Komarov. On March 27, 1968, Earth's first cosmonaut died while performing a training flight on an airplane. Yuri Gagarin. Sergei Korolev's latest project, the N-1 lunar rocket, suffered one failure after another during testing.

The cosmonauts involved in the manned “lunar program” wrote letters to the CPSU Central Committee asking for permission to fly on their own responsibility, despite the high probability of disaster. However political leadership the country did not want to take that risk. The Americans were the first to land on the Moon, and the Soviet lunar program"was folded.

The participants in the failed conquest of the Moon were transferred to another project - a flight to the world's first manned orbital station. A manned laboratory in orbit should have allowed the Soviet Union to at least partially compensate for the defeat on the Moon.

Crews for Salyut

In the approximately four months that the first station could operate in orbit, it was planned to send three expeditions to it. Crew number one included Georgy Shonin, Alexey Eliseev And Nikolay Rukavishnikov, the second crew was Alexey Leonov, Valery Kubasov, Petr Kolodin, crew number three - Vladimir Shatalov, Vladislav Volkov, Victor Patsayev. There was also a fourth, reserve crew, consisting of Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vitaly Sevastyanov And Anatoly Voronov.

The commander of crew number four, Georgy Dobrovolsky, seemed to have no chance of getting to the first station, called Salyut. But fate had a different opinion on this matter.

Georgy Shonin grossly violated the regime, and the chief curator of the Soviet cosmonaut detachment, General Nikolay Kamanin suspended him from further training. Vladimir Shatalov was transferred to Shonin’s place, he himself was replaced by Georgy Dobrovolsky, and the fourth crew was introduced Alexey Gubarev.

Soyuz-10 returned safely to Earth, after which engineers began hastily modifying the docking units of Soyuz-11.

Forced substitution

A new attempt to conquer the Salyut was to be made by the crew consisting of Alexey Leonov, Valery Kubasov and Pyotr Kolodin. The start of their expedition was scheduled for June 6, 1971.

During the wire to Baikonur, the plate that Leonov threw to the ground for luck did not break. The awkwardness was hushed up, but the bad feelings remained.

According to tradition, two crews flew to the cosmodrome - the main and backup. The understudies were Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsaev.

SOYUZ-11 "Soyuz-11" on the launch pad. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Mokletsov

This was a formality, since until then no last-minute substitutions had been made.

But three days before the start, doctors found a darkening in Valery Kubasov’s lungs, which they considered initial stage tuberculosis. The verdict was categorical - he couldn’t go on a flight.

The state commission decided: what to do? The commander of the main crew, Alexei Leonov, insisted that if Kubasov could not fly, then he needed to be replaced with backup flight engineer Vladislav Volkov.

Most experts, however, believed that in such conditions it was necessary to replace the entire crew. Against partial replacement The backup crew also performed. General Kamanin wrote in his diaries that the situation had become seriously tense. Two crews usually went to the traditional pre-flight meeting. After the commission approved the replacement, and Dobrovolsky’s crew became the main one, Valery Kubasov announced that he would not go to the rally: “I’m not flying, what should I do there?” Kubasov still showed up at the rally, but tension was in the air.

Soviet cosmonauts (from left to right) Vladislav Volkov, Georgy Dobrovolsky and Viktor Patsaev at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Mokletsov

“If this is compatibility, then what is incompatibility?”

Journalist Yaroslav Golovanov, who wrote a lot on the topic of space, recalled what was happening these days at Baikonur: “Leonov was tearing and throwing... poor Valery (Kubasov) did not understand anything at all: he felt absolutely healthy... At night he came to the hotel Petya Kolodin, drunk and completely down. He told me: “Slava, understand, I will never fly into space again...”.

Kolodin, by the way, was not mistaken - he never went into space.

Reports in the Soviet press were bravura - everything was going according to the program, the crew was feeling good. In reality, things were not so smooth. After landing, when studying the crew’s work diaries, they found Dobrovolsky’s note: “If this is compatibility, then what is incompatibility?”

Flight engineer Vladislav Volkov, who had space flight experience behind him, often tried to take the initiative, which was not very popular with the specialists on Earth, and even with his fellow crew members.

On the 11th day of the expedition, a fire broke out on board, and there was a question of emergency leaving the station, but the crew still managed to cope with the situation.

General Kamanin wrote in his diary: “At eight in the morning Dobrovolsky and Patsayev were still sleeping, Volkov got in touch, who yesterday, according to Bykovsky’s report, was the most nervous of all and “yaked” too much (“I decided...”, “I did ..." etc). On behalf of Mishin, he was given instructions: “Everything is decided by the crew commander, follow his orders,” to which Volkov replied: “We decide everything as a crew. We will figure out what to do ourselves.”

“The connection ends. Happily!"

Despite all the difficulties and difficult conditions, the Soyuz-11 crew fully completed the flight program. On June 29, the cosmonauts were supposed to undock from Salyut and return to Earth. After the return of Soyuz-11, the next expedition was supposed to go to the station to secure achievements achieved

and continue experiments. But before undocking with Salyut, a problem arose. The crew had to close the transfer hatch in the descent module. But the “Hatch is open” banner on the control panel continued to glow. Several attempts to open and close the hatch yielded nothing. The astronauts were under great stress. Earth advised placing a piece of insulation under the limit switch of the sensor. This was done repeatedly during testing. The hatch was closed again. To the delight of the crew, the banner went out. The pressure in the service compartment was released. According to the instrument readings, we were convinced that no air was escaping from the descent vehicle and its tightness was normal. After this, Soyuz-11 successfully undocked from the station.

At 0:16 on June 30, General Kamanin contacted the crew, reporting the landing conditions, and ending with the phrase: “See you soon on Earth!”

“I understand, the landing conditions are excellent. Everything is in order on board, the crew is feeling excellent. Thank you for your concern and good wishes", answered Georgy Dobrovolsky from orbit.

Here is a recording of the last negotiations between the Earth and the Soyuz-11 crew:

Zarya (Mission Control Center): How is the orientation going?

“Yantar-2” (Vladislav Volkov): We saw the Earth, we saw it!

"Zarya": Okay, don't rush.

"Yantar-2": "Zarya", I am "Yantar-2". We started orientation. The rain is hanging on the right.

"Yantar-2": Flies great, beautiful!

“Yantar-3” (Viktor Patsayev): “Zarya”, I’m third. I can see the horizon along the lower edge of the window.

“Zarya”: “Yantar”, I remind you once again of the orientation - zero - one hundred and eighty degrees.

"Yantar-2": Zero - one hundred and eighty degrees.

"Zarya": We understood correctly.

"Yantar-2": The "Descent" banner is lit.

"Zarya": Let it burn. Everything is fine. It burns correctly. The connection ends. Happily!"

“The outcome of the flight is the most difficult”

At 1:35 Moscow time, after the orientation of the Soyuz, the braking propulsion system was turned on. After completing the estimated time and losing speed, the ship began to leave orbit.

During the passage of dense layers of the atmosphere there is no communication with the crew; it should appear again after the parachute of the descent vehicle is deployed, due to the antenna on the parachute line.

At 2:05, a report was received from the Air Force command post: “The crews of the Il-14 aircraft and the Mi-8 helicopter see the Soyuz-11 ship descending by parachute.” At 2:17 the lander landed. Almost simultaneously, four search group helicopters landed.

Doctor Anatoly Lebedev, who was part of the search group, recalled that he was confused by the silence of the crew on the radio. The helicopter pilots conducted active radio communications at the moment while the descent vehicle was landing, and the astronauts did not go on the air. But this was attributed to antenna failure.

When the crew was taken out of the descent module, doctors could not understand what had happened. It seemed that the astronauts simply lost consciousness. But upon a quick examination, it became clear that everything was much more serious. Six doctors began performing artificial respiration and chest compressions.

Minutes passed, the search group commander, General Goreglyad demanded an answer from the doctors, but they continued to try to bring the crew back to life. Finally, Lebedev replied: “Tell me that the crew landed without signs of life.” This wording was included in all official documents.

Doctors continued resuscitation measures until absolute signs of death appeared. But their desperate efforts could not change anything.

The Mission Control Center was first reported that “the outcome of the space flight is the most difficult.” And then, having abandoned any kind of conspiracy, they reported: “The entire crew was killed.”

Depressurization

It was a terrible shock for the whole country. At the farewell in Moscow, the comrades of the deceased cosmonauts cried and said: “Now we are burying entire crews!” It seemed that the Soviet space program had completely failed.

The specialists, however, had to work even at such a moment. What happened in those minutes when there was no communication with the astronauts? What killed the crew of Soyuz 11?

The word “depressurization” sounded almost immediately. We remembered the emergency situation with the hatch and checked for leaks. But her results showed that the hatch is reliable, it had nothing to do with it.

But it really was a matter of depressurization. An analysis of the records of the Mir autonomous on-board measurement recorder, a kind of “black box” of the spacecraft, showed: from the moment the compartments were separated at an altitude of more than 150 km, the pressure in the descent module began to decrease sharply, and within 115 seconds dropped to 50 millimeters of mercury.

These indicators indicated the destruction of one of the ventilation valves, which is provided in case the ship lands on water or lands with the hatch down. The supply of life support system resources is limited, and so that the astronauts do not experience a lack of oxygen, the valve “connected” the ship to the atmosphere. It should have worked during landing in normal mode only at an altitude of 4 km, but this happened at an altitude of 150 km, in a vacuum.

Forensic medical examination showed traces of brain hemorrhage, blood in the lungs, damage to the eardrums and the release of nitrogen from the blood of the crew members.

From the report of the medical service: “50 seconds after the separation, Patsayev’s respiratory rate was 42 per minute, which is characteristic of acute oxygen starvation. Dobrovolsky's pulse quickly drops, and breathing stops by this time. This is the initial period of death. At the 110th second after separation, all three have no recorded pulse or breathing. We believe that death occurred 120 seconds after separation.”

The crew fought to the end, but had no chance of salvation

The hole in the valve through which the air escaped was no more than 20 mm, and, as some engineers said, it could “just be plugged with your finger.” However, this advice was practically impossible to implement. Immediately after depressurization, fog formed in the cabin, and a terrible whistle of escaping air sounded. Just a few seconds later, the astronauts began to experience terrible pain throughout their bodies due to acute decompression sickness, and then they found themselves in complete silence due to burst eardrums.

On Earth, Alexey Leonov and Nikolai Rukavishnikov participated in an experiment trying to determine how long it takes to close a valve. The cosmonauts, who knew where trouble would come from, were ready for it and were not in real danger, needed significantly more time than the Soyuz-11 crew had. Doctors believe that consciousness began to fade in such conditions after about 20 seconds. However, the rescue valve was partially closed. One of the crew began to spin it, but lost consciousness.

After Soyuz-11, the cosmonauts were again dressed in spacesuits

The reason for the abnormal opening of the valve was considered to be a defect in the manufacture of this system. Even the KGB got involved in the case, seeing possible sabotage. But no saboteurs were found, and besides, on Earth it was not possible to experimentally repeat the situation of abnormal valve opening. As a result, this version was left final due to the lack of a more reliable one.

Spacesuits could have saved the cosmonauts, but on the personal orders of Sergei Korolev their use was discontinued, starting with Voskhod 1, when this was done to save space in the cabin. After the Soyuz-11 disaster, a controversy erupted between the military and engineers - the former insisted on the return of the spacesuits, and the latter argued that this emergency was an exceptional case, while the introduction of spacesuits would sharply reduce the possibilities for delivering payload and increasing the number of crew members.

Victory in the discussion remained with the military, and, starting with the flight of Soyuz-12, domestic cosmonauts fly only in spacesuits.

The ashes of Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev were buried in the Kremlin wall. The program of manned flights to the Salyut-1 station was curtailed.

The next manned flight to the USSR took place more than two years later. Vasily Lazarev And Oleg Makarov new spacesuits were tested on Soyuz-12.

The failures of the late 1960s and early 1970s were not fatal for the Soviet space program. By the 1980s, the space exploration program using orbital stations again brought the Soviet Union to the world leader. During flights, emergency situations and serious accidents occurred, but people and equipment rose to the occasion. Since June 30, 1971, there have been no disasters with human casualties in the domestic astronautics.

P.S. The diagnosis of tuberculosis made to cosmonaut Valery Kubasov turned out to be erroneous. The darkening in the lungs was a reaction to the flowering of the plants, and soon disappeared. Kubasov, together with Alexei Leonov, took part in a joint flight with American astronauts under the Soyuz-Apollo program, as well as in a flight with the first Hungarian cosmonaut Bertalan Farkas.