Soyuz 15

Soyuz 15 mission is the designation for the flight of a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft to the Soviet space station Salyut 3 ( ALMAZ 2). It was the second visit of a Soyuz spacecraft in this space station and the 30th flight in the Soviet Sojusprogramm. After Soyuz 14 672 two modifications of the Soyuz spacecraft were tested for unmanned testing joining with Cosmos 670 and Cosmos.

Crew

Main occupation

  • Gennady Vasilyevich Sarafanov ( first space flight), Commander
  • Lev Stepanovich Dyomin ( first space flight), flight engineer

Dyomin and Sarafanov previously backup crew for Soyuz 14

Backup crew

  • Boris Valentinovich Wolynow, Commander
  • Vitaly Mikhailovich Scholobow, Flight Engineer

The support team consisted of Vyacheslav Sudow and Valery Rozhdestvensky.

Mission overview

It is planned to continue the work with the station Salyut 3/Almaz was 2 The spacecraft first approached according to plan using the automatic docking system Igla the station to approximately 300 m. Then the system but did not change in the sequence for final approach, but switched to a mode which is normally controlled the approach from about three miles away. It accelerated the spacecraft to a speed relative to the Salyut 3 of up to 72 km / h This relative speed flew Soyuz 15 in only 40 m over distance to the station. Were a total of three automatic approaches. Thereafter only remained enough fuel to ensure the return to the ground. The flight had to be terminated after only two days.

Effects

Since the coupling system of the Soyuz spacecraft had to be revised, Salyut 3 could not be manned. The next scheduled space flight, Soyuz 16 with Wolynow and Scholobow was canceled. Instead flew next spacecraft in December 1974, a version that was equipped with a coupling mechanism for the Apollo -Soyuz project. In January 1975, could be continued with the Salyut 4 space station operation. Since this is in contrast to the Salyut 3 negotiated a civil station, Wolynow and Scholobow had to wait until the next military station ( Salyut 5) with their application two years.

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