This page needs to be proofread.

considerable time looking at the Earth and inspecting the station. Lebedev was impressed by how still and silent the station’s exterior seemed, given its complex and noisy interior mechanisms. He noted that the green insulation on Salyut 7 had already faded and become grayish, but was otherwise undamaged. He also noted two folded Yakor foot restraints and a cable winch near the base of one of the solar arrays. Part of the purpose of his EVA was to perform assembly and disassembly tasks to allow him to judge the feasibility of the next crew using these to put in place solar array extensions. Then the Elbrus replaced the micrometeoroid, Medusa biopolymer, and Elast thermo-insulation samples panels. Lebedev worked with the Istok panel, which tested his ability to turn bolts using a special wrench. When the station moved into sunlight, Lebedev could feel through his gloves that the EVA handrails became hot. The cosmonauts installed additional experiments before returning to the transfer compartment. After the EVA they spent a day storing their space suits. Lebedev found a 20-mm dent in his helmet, with a small split in the metal, possibly produced by striking it on apparatus in the transfer compartment. “Thank God the helmet is built with double layers of metal,” he wrote in his diary.[1][2] |}

Soyuz-T 5 • Salyut 7 August 10-20, 1982

Soyuz-T 5 • Salyut 7 • Soyuz-T 7 August 20-27, 1982
Soyuz-T 7 Visiting Expedition. The Soyuz-T 7 crew (code name Dneiper) included Svetlana Savitskaya, the first woman to visit space in 20 years. She was given the orbital module of Soyuz-T 7 for privacy. The Soyuz-T 7 crew delivered experiments and mail from home to the Elbrus crew. On August 21 the five cosmonauts traded seat liners between the Soyuz-Ts. The Dneipers undocked in Soyuz-T 5, leaving the newer Soyuz-T 7 spacecraft for the longduration crew.[3]

Salyut 7 • Soyuz-T 7 August 27-29, 1982

Salyut 7 • Soyuz-T 7 August 29-September 20, 1982
SPort Transfer. Soyuz-T 7 was repositioned by rotating Salyut 7, freeing the aft port for Progress 15.

Salyut 7 is home. On September 1 Lebedev concluded his diary entry:

I look around the station and view it with a different attitude. Now I think of it as home. The whole place looks so familiar. Everything in it is so near and dear to me now. When I look at the interior of the station, I feel no alienation, no sense that my surroundings are temporary or strange. Everything is ours. We’ve touched every square millimeter and object in here. We know exactly where every piece of equipment is mounted, not from documentation but from memory. Many little details, such as photographs on the panels, children’s drawings, flowers,
  1. Lebedev, pp. 131-158.
  2. Johnson, 1983, p. 28.
  3. Lebedev, pp. 169-201.