2.3 Failed Salyuts (1972-1973)2.3.1 DOS-2 (July 29, 1972)A year after the Soyuz 11 failure, the Soviet Union felt ready to send crews to a second DOS-type station. Like Salyut 1, its large compontents were originally built for the Almaz program. Failure of the second stage of its three-stage Proton launch vehicle prevented the station from reaching orbit. It fell into the Pacific Ocean. |
2.3.2 Salyut 2/Almaz 1 (April 3-May 28, 1973)On April 3, 1973, the day of the Salyut 2 launch, the Soviet magazine Nauka i Zhian published an interview with Soviet Academician Boris Petrov. In it he declared that lunar space stations would be established to act as bridgeheads for excursions to the lunar surface. He also predicted the advent of multimodular stations with crews of up to 120 people.[1] The failure of Salyut 2 a few days later must have made these goals seem distant indeed. Salyut 2, the first Almaz station, reached orbit on April 3, 1973. Soon after, Salyut 2 lost stability and began tumbling. In 1992, Mikhail Lisun, backup cosmonaut for the Soyuz 24 flight to Almaz station |
Salyut 5, attributed the loss of Salyut 2 to an electrical fire, followed by depressurization.[2] Salyut 2 broke up on April 14, and all trackable pieces reentered by May 28, 1973. 2.3.3 Cosmos 557/DOS-3 (May 11-22, 1973)The third DOS-type station reached orbit just ahead of the U.S. Skylab workshop. Like DOS-2 and Salyut 1, it was based on a hull transferred from the Almaz program in 1970. Shortly after attaining orbit, the station suffered a failure in its attitude control system ion sensors, leading to depletion of most of its attitude control fuel supply. One account states that a command to raise its orbit was sent, but the station was in the wrong attitude, so it reentered.[3] |
2.4 Salyut 3/Almaz 2 (June 24, 1974-January 24, 1975)Salyut 3 (figure 2-7) was the second Almaz station, and the first to be manned. Its mission was primarily military. For this reason, less information is available on Salyut 3 and Salyut 5 (the other successful Almaz station) than for the primarily civilian DOS-type Salyuts. Photos of the Almaz stations have surfaced only recently. |
Figure 2-7. Salyut 3, the first successful Almaz space station. The drogue docking unit is at the rear of the station (left), between the two main engines. |
