Soyuz 12
Soyuz 12 mission is the designation for the flight of a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. It was the 22nd flight in Sojusprogramm and the first manned after the accident with Soyuz 11 in between unmanned Soyuz spaceships were launched under the names of Cosmos 496 and 573.
Crew
Home team
- Vasily Grigoryevich Lazarev ( first space flight), Commander
- Oleg Grigoryevich Makarov ( first space flight), flight engineer
With Lazarev for the first time, a non-pilot commander of a Soviet space flight. Lazarev was a doctor before he was trained as a cosmonaut, Makarov engineer.
Backup crew
- Alexei Alexandrovich Gubaryov, Commander
- Georgi Mikhailovich Grechko, Flight Engineer
The support team consisted of Pyotr Klimuk and Vitaly Sevastyanov.
Mission overview
The mission was manned testing of the second generation of Soyuz spaceships. The experiences of the tragic end of the Soyuz -11 crew led to the revision of the ship. Since, landing and other critical maneuvers spacesuits were to wear during launch, the crew was reduced to two cosmonauts.
In addition to reviewing the spaceship made spectroscopic studies of the earth.