stresses and vibrations produced when the 7-ton Soyuz 27 spacecraft contacted the front port might transmit through Salyut 6, forcibly uncoupling Soyuz 26 from the rear port.
Rezonans and first spacecraft swap. The Soyuz 27-Salyut 6-Soyuz 26 combination massed about 33,000 kg and featured seven compartments: two descent modules, two orbital modules, the transfer compartment, the work compartment, and the small aft intermediate compartment. The four cosmonauts conducted many experiments, including Rezonans, which was designed to determine if resonant frequencies might threaten the structural integrity of the three-spacecraft combination. The experiment called for the cosmonauts to jump around Salyut 6 on command from the TsUP. The guest crew spent 5 days on Salyut 6, then returned to Earth in Soyuz 26, leaving the fresh Soyuz 27 spacecraft for the Tamyrs. This was the first of many such spacecraft swaps.
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Soyuz 27 • Salyut 6 | January 16-22, 1978 |
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Soyuz 27 • Salyut 6 • Progress 1 | January 22-February 6, 1978 | |
| Progress 1 refuels Salyut 6. The first Progress delivered what would become the standard manifest of food, air, water, and fuel. According to Sergei Krikalev, in Progress’ early days the cosmonauts rushed to unload delivered supplies and reload the Progress with waste. By the time he flew for the first time (to Mir, in 1988), this procedure had been modified to let Progress serve as a kind of storage room while docked. The Progress was retained for as long
as possible (until the next Progress was needed and ready for launch), and cargo was removed gradually, as needed. For this purpose, cargo was loaded so that it could be taken out in order of anticipated need. Center-of-gravity and volume limitations sometimes compromised this, however.[1] For this first Progress refueling operation, the Tamyrs fastidiously inspected Salyut 6’s fuel lines for leaks for several days. Fuel and oxidizer were transferred February 2-3. On February 5 nitrogen from Progress 1 purged the lines so they would not spill toxic propellant onto the docking drogue when the supply ship undocked. | |||
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Soyuz 27 • Salyut 6 | February 6-March 3, 1978 |
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Soyuz 27 • Salyut 6 • Soyuz 28 | March 3-10, 1978 | |
| First Intercosmos mission. Alexei Gubarev and Vladimir Remek formed the Zenit Visiting Expedition. Vladimir Remek, a Czech, was the first non-U.S./non-Soviet space traveler. He flew as part of Intercosmos, a program of cooperative space activities between the Soviet Union and other countries (especially those in the eastern bloc). Remek’s experiment program touched on life sciences, materials processing, and upper atmosphere research. | |||
- ↑ Interview, David S. F. Portree with Sergei Krikalev, February 28, 1994.
