Soyuz 10

Soyuz 10

Salyut 1 (left) and Soyuz 10 during a docking attempt.
Operator	Soviet space program
COSPAR ID	1971-034A[1]
SATCAT №	5172[1]
Mission duration	1 day, 23 hours, 45 minutes, 54 seconds
Orbits completed	32
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft type	Soyuz 7K-OKS
Manufacturer	Experimental Design Bureau OKB-1
Launch mass	6,800 kilograms (15,000 lb)
Crew
Crew size	3
Members	Vladimir Shatalov Aleksei Yeliseyev Nikolai Rukavishnikov
Callsign	Гранит (Granit - "Granite")[2]
Start of mission
Launch date	22 April 1971, 23:54:06 (1971-04-22UTC23:54:06Z) UTC
Rocket	Soyuz
Launch site	Baikonur 1/5[3]
End of mission
Landing date	24 April 1971, 23:40:00 (1971-04-24UTC23:41Z) UTC
Landing site	120 kilometres (75 mi) NW of Karaganda
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Low Earth
Perigee	209 kilometres (130 mi)
Apogee	258 kilometres (160 mi)
Inclination	51.6 degrees
Period	89.1 minutes
Epoch	23 April 1971[1]
Soyuz programme (Manned missions) ← Soyuz 9 Soyuz 11 →

Soyuz 10 (Russian: Союз 10, Union 10) was launched on 22 April 1971 as the world's first mission to the world's first space station, the Soviet Salyut 1. The docking was not successful and the crew returned to Earth without having entered the station. It would be the first of numerous docking failures in the Soviet space station program.^[4]

Orbit

Soyuz 10 was launched on 22 April 1971 to dock with Salyut 1. The spacecraft was the first of the upgraded Soyuz 7K-OKS, featuring the new "probe and drogue" docking mechanism with internal crew transfer capability, intended for space station visits.

Mission

The cosmonauts Vladimir Shatalov, Aleksei Yeliseyev, and Nikolai Rukavishnikov were able to navigate their Soyuz 10 spacecraft to the Salyut 1 station, yet during docking they ran into problems. The automatic control system failed during approach due to a serious design oversight - when soft dock was performed, the computer sensed an abnormality in the spacecraft's alignment and began firing the attitude control jets to compensate. With Soyuz 10 being pushed to one side by the attitude control system, it became impossible to achieve hard dock and large quantities of propellant were expended doing so. The docking attempt was called off, but further problems occurred when the probe would not come out of the space station's docking cone. The obvious solution was to simply jettison the orbital module and leave it attached to Salyut 1, but this would make it impossible for future Soyuz missions to dock and thus the space station would have to be abandoned. Eventually, ground controllers figured out that the cosmonauts could throw a circuit breaker in the docking mechanism, as interrupting the power supply would cause the probe to automatically retract. This procedure worked and undocking was completed.^[2] The automatic control system would be redesigned on future Soyuz spacecraft.

After finally undocking, one last hitch presented itself when toxic fumes began to fill the capsule during reentry, causing Rukavishnikov to pass out – all three crew members were recovered unscathed however. It presaged an ill omen for the next mission.

Crew

Backup crew

Reserve crew

See also

• Soyuz T-13, a mission to manually dock to the crippled Salyut 7 space station.
• Soyuz T-15, a mission to ferry equipment from Salyut 7 to Mir, which had to manually maneuver and dock to Mir.

References

Soyuz programme Main topics Soyuz (rocket family) Soyuz (spacecraft) Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 1/5 Site 31/6 List of Soviet manned space missions List of Russian manned space missions Uncrewed missions Soyuz 7K-OK Kosmos 133 Kosmos 140 Kosmos 186 Kosmos 188 Kosmos 212 Kosmos 213 Kosmos 238 Soyuz 2 Soyuz 7K-L1/L1S (Zond lunar programme) Kosmos 146 Kosmos 154 Zond 1967A Zond 1967B Zond 4 Zond 1968A Zond 1968B Zond 5 Zond 6 Zond 1969A Zond-M 1 Zond-M 2 Zond 7 Zond 8 Zond 9 Zond 10 Soyuz 7K-T Kosmos 496 Kosmos 573 Kosmos 613 Kosmos 656 Soyuz 32 (uncrewed landing) Soyuz 34 (uncrewed launch) Soyuz 7K-TM Kosmos 638 Kosmos 672 Soyuz 7K-S Kosmos 670 Kosmos 772 Kosmos 869 Soyuz 7K-T/A9 Soyuz 20 Soyuz-T ("Soyuz 7K-ST") Kosmos 1001 Kosmos 1074 Soyuz T-1 Soyuz-TM ("Soyuz 7K-STM") Soyuz TM-1 Crewed missions Past Soyuz 7K-OK (1967–1970) 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Soyuz 7K-OKS (1971) 10 11 Soyuz 7K-T (1973–1981) 12 13 14 15 17 18a 18 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 (crewed launch) 33 34 (crewed landing) 35 36 37 38 39 40 Soyuz 7K-TM (1974–1976) 16 19 22 Soyuz-T (1976–1986) T-2 T-3 T-4 T-5 T-6 T-7 T-8 T-9 T-10-1 T-10 T-11 T-12 T-13 T-14 T-15 Soyuz-TM (1986–2003) TM-2 TM-3 TM-4 TM-5 TM-6 TM-7 TM-8 TM-9 TM-10 TM-11 TM-12 TM-13 TM-14 TM-15 TM-16 TM-17 TM-18 TM-19 TM-20 TM-21 TM-22 TM-23 TM-24 TM-25 TM-26 TM-27 TM-28 TM-29 TM-30 TM-31 TM-32 TM-33 TM-34 Soyuz-TMA (2003–2012) TMA-1 TMA-2 TMA-3 TMA-4 TMA-5 TMA-6 TMA-7 TMA-8 TMA-9 TMA-10 TMA-11 TMA-12 TMA-13 TMA-14 TMA-15 TMA-16 TMA-17 TMA-18 TMA-19 TMA-20 TMA-21 TMA-22 Soyuz-TMA-M (2010–2015) TMA-01M TMA-02M TMA-03M TMA-04M TMA-05M TMA-06M TMA-07M TMA-08M TMA-09M TMA-10M TMA-11M TMA-12M TMA-13M TMA-14M TMA-15M TMA-16M TMA-17M Current Soyuz-TMA-M (2015) TMA-18M TMA-19M Planned Soyuz-TMA-M (2015–2016) TMA-20M Soyuz-MS (2016– ) MS-01 MS-02 MS-03 MS-04 MS-05