1971 жылғы "Союз-11" ғарыш сапары: трагедия мен жаңа рекордтар

1971 Soviet spaceflight, first spaceflight to visit a space station, and fatal disaster
a 1971 spaceflight

The Soyuz 7K OKS spacecraft was launched on 6 June 1971, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the central Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, and used the callsign Yantar (Amber). Several months earlier, the first mission to the Salyut, Soyuz 10, had failed to successfully dock with the station. During the first day of the flight, maneuvers were made to effect a rendezvous with the uncrewed Salyut (1971 032A). When Soyuz 11 was from Salyut, automatic devices took over, and in 24 minutes closed the gap between the two ships to and reduced the relative speed difference to Control of the ships went from automatic back to manual at Docking took 3 hours 19 minutes to complete and involved making the connection mechanically rigid, engaging various electrical and hydraulic links, and establishing air tight seals before locks could be opened. When the pressure was equalized between the ships, the locks were opened and all three members of the crew passed into Salyut 1. Soyuz 11 successfully docked with Salyut 1 on 7 June 1971 and the cosmonauts remained on board for 22 days, setting space endurance records that would hold until the American Skylab 2 mission in May and June 1973. The crew also found that using the exercise treadmill, as they were required to twice a day, caused the whole station to vibrate. Kerim Kerimov, chair of the State Commission, recalled: "Outwardly, there was no damage whatsoever. They knocked on the side, but there was no response from within. On opening the hatch, they found all three men in their couches, motionless, with dark blue patches on their faces and trails of blood from their noses and ears. They removed them from the descent module. Dobrovolsky was still warm. The doctors gave artificial respiration. Based on their reports, the cause of death was suffocation".

It quickly became apparent that the cosmonauts had asphyxiated. The fault was traced to a breathing ventilation valve, located between the orbital module and the descent module, that had been jolted open as the descent module separated from the service module, 12 minutes and 3 seconds after retrofire. The two modules were held together by explosive bolts designed to fire sequentially; in fact, they had fired simultaneously. The valve was located beneath the seats and was impossible to find and block before the air was lost. Flight recorder data from the single cosmonaut outfitted with biomedical sensors showed cardiac arrest occurred within 40 seconds of pressure loss. By 15 minutes 35 seconds after retrofire, the cabin pressure was zero, and remained there until the capsule entered the Earth's atmosphere. Until autopsy, they were not known to have died because of a capsule depressurisation. The ground crew had lost audio contact with the crew before re entry began, and had already begun preparations for contingencies in case the crew had been lost. In 2012, the memorial was found to have been vandalized beyond repair, with only the base of the metallic column remaining and any roads leading to it overgrown. In 2013, Russian space agency Roscosmos restored the site with a redesigned monument, reflecting the three sided form of the original, but this time constructed from brick. Also placed at the site was a sign explaining the history of the location and the fate of the original monument. Craters on the Moon were named after the three cosmonauts: Dobrovol'skiy, Volkov, and Patsaev. The names of the three cosmonauts are included on the Fallen Astronaut commemorative plaque placed on the Moon during the Apollo 15 mission in August 1971. To honour the loss of the Soyuz 11 crew, a group of hills on Pluto is also named Soyuz Colles. In the city of Penza, Russia, near the school gymnasium No. 39, in honour of the dead astronauts, a memorial stele was made with quotes from the poem by the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko "Between our Motherland and you is a two way eternal connection" (Russian version: "Между Родиной нашей и вами – двусторонняя вечная связь")

In addition to the Soviet postage stamp depicted above, a series of postage stamps of the Emirate of Ajman and Bulgaria was issued in memory of the cosmonauts in 1971.