Lev Dyomin

Lev Stepanovich Dyomin (Russian Лев Степанович Дёмин; born January 11, 1926 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, † 18 December 1998 " Star City " in Moscow) was a Soviet cosmonaut.

Life

Dyomin joined the Air Force in July 1947. From 1951 to 1956 he studied at the Military Academy of the Air Force in Monino and was subsequently aspirant at this academy.

Cosmonauts activity

In 1962 Dyomin went through the selection process for cosmonauts and was taken in January 1963 in the second military cosmonaut group. His basic training ended on 21 January 1965 with the final exam. Dyomin was among the top four of the 15 graduates.

Already in 1964 Dyomin was trained for a long flight with a Voskhod spacecraft, which provided flights were never carried out. Then Dyomin was as a flight engineer for the Soyuz spacecraft in conversation. As of September 1966, he trained for the planned space station Almaz. The crash of Soyuz 1 and the misfortune of Soyuz 11, however, all manned projects were delayed considerably.

In addition, some engineers who were central design bureau for experimental mechanical engineering from the design office were divided to space flights before Dyomin. Jelissejew, Kubasov and Volkov were provided for the first three crews of Salyut 1.

From November 1971 to April 1972 was training Dyomin along with his commander Pavel Popovich, from September 1972 he was assigned to Commander Gennady Sarafanov. They were the backup crew for the first planned mission to Almaz.

The first Almaz station was launched in April 1973 under the designation Salyut 2. However, due to technical problems could not be manned and crashed after only two months.

The next Almaz station was launched in June 1974 under the name Salyut 3. Sarafanov and Dyomin were the backup crew for the first crew on Soyuz 14 and the main team for the second crew on Soyuz 15

Dyomin and Sarafanov launched on 26 August 1974 ( according to local time already August 27 ) with Soyuz 15 They conducted a rendezvous with Salyut 3, but the automatic approach and docking system Igla failed, and they could not connect it. Controlled by the cosmonauts coupling has not been possible, and so the cosmonauts had to return prematurely to the ground. The landing occurred 48 hours after its launch on August 28 ( August 29 according to local time already ). This was the first night landing in the history of manned space flight.

With 48 years Dyomin was the oldest known human in space. He replaced Georgi Beregowoi, who had been 47 years old during his flight. Djomins record was broken in 1975 by 51 -year-old Deke Slayton.

After the space flight

Dyomin retired in January 1982 from the cosmonaut corps, in August 1983 from the army. He was temporarily deputy director of the "star town " and then worked in the Soviet Ministry of Geology, Moscow. In 1989, he went into retirement. Lew Dyomin died of cancer. He left behind a wife and two children.

Honors

Dyomin received, among others, the following awards:

December 18 Voskhod (spacecraft) Salyut programme
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