From: clj@ksr.com (Chris Jones)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Soviet space disaster?
Date: 2 Jan 93 14:37:16 EST
Reply-To: clj@ksr.com (Chris Jones)
Followup-To: soc.history
Organization: Kendall Square Research Corp
In-reply-to: packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer)

In article <2JAN199307174468@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov>, packer@amarna (Charles Packer) writes:
>Somebody told me recently that they had read that the
>former Soviet Union had suffered a space disaster in which
>they had to leave one of their cosmonauts in orbit to die
>because they couldn't rescue him. My informant said that
>his information came from reading newspaper accounts of
>formerly secret material that was made public in the last
>couple of years during the unravelling of the Soviet system
>and the subsequent increase in openness of discussion and 
>publication in Russia.
>
>I don't recall seeing anything about this. I would expect 
>that it would have been given major coverage in the West
>and would have come to my attention. Also, I can't recall
>a story to this effect any time in the past thirty years,
>though my memory might be hazy.
>
>Can anybody shed light on whether this event did happen?

Like you, I don't recall anything about this in the last couple of years.  I do
recall that, early in the space era (early sixties), there were persistent
reports of dubious reliability concerning Soviet space disasters which stranded
crews of various sizes in orbit.  As far as I know, the only Soviet in-flight
spaceflight disasters are the two publicly announced ones: Soyuz 1, which
killed its lone occupant, and Soyuz 11, which killed its crew of 3.  In
addition, there was a Soyuz mission which had difficulty during retrofire,
which led to the cosmonauts reentering a day later than planned, a day which
was spent in orbit without the Soyuz orbital module.  This was jettisoned in
preparation for retrofire, and took with it most of the living arrangements
(including the toilet!).

There have been three times the press has resorted to saying that cosmonauts
were stranded in orbit when in fact they were not (in every case the cosmonauts
made successful reentries).  Once was when a Soyuz launch abort prevented a
swap of the Soyuz ferries within the nominal on-orbit lifetime of the ferry.
The cosmonauts later made a problem-free on-schedule reentry using the
"expired" Soyuz.  Another time some fabric insulation came loose from a Soyuz
ferry, and the Soviets stated they were going to repair it before the scheduled
reentry.  However, they were perfectly willing to use the unrepaired spacecraft
to reenter in an emergency, and they did repair it to their satisfaction before
reentry.  The third time is when one cosmonaut had his return flight pushed
back twice due to changing crew assignments.

Soyuz 1, which killed Vladimir Komarov, *might* be the flight which generated
the report to which you refer.  What is known is that Soyuz 1 was launched,
there were no television pictures broadcast from the spacecraft in flight, it
reentered outside a normal Soyuz reentry window, and its crew member did not
survive.  It has been reported that it was in trouble almost from the beginning
of its flight, that at least one of its two solar panels was torn loose as it
entered orbit (explaining the lack of TV pictures), that Komarov had constant
trouble controlling the spacecraft, resulting in the cancellation of the planned
launch of another Soyuz to dock with it for a crew exchange, that he cancelled
two reentry attempts due to being unable to properly align the Soyuz for
retrofire, and that the actual reentry was a desperate affair in which he set
the spacecraft spinning for stabilization and that this spinning indirectly led
to the reported cause of the reentry failure: the shroud lines of his main
parachute tangled and the attempt to deploy the backup chute failed when it
tangled with the main chute.  Unlike the 3 Soyuz 11 cosmonauts, whose bodies
lay in state for several days before interment in the Kremlin wall, Komarov's
interment took place without his body having lain in state.

Like the US, the Soviets also have suffered a number of training accidents,
cosmonauts dying in plane crashes, and cosmonauts dying of natural causes.
They have also had at least three pad accidents which have killed (in total)
multiple hundreds of support personnel.
--
Chris Jones    clj@ksr.com
Newsgroups: sci.space