Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing
120 km northwest of Karaganda.
The first manned space station
was launched on April 19, 1971. Salyut 1 included a number of military
experiments, including the OD-4 optical visual ranger, the Orion ultraviolet
instrument for characterizing rocket plumes, and the highly classified Svinets
radiometer. Primary objectives included photography of the earth, spectrographs
of the earth's horizon, experiments with intense gamma rays, and studying
manual methods for station orientation.
Soyuz 10 approached to 180 m
from Salyut 1 automatically. It was hand docked after failure of the automatic
system, but hard docking could not be achieved
because of the angle of
approach. Flight analysis indicated that the cosmonauts had no instrument to
provide the angle and range rate data necessary for a successful manual
docking. Soyuz 10 was connected to the station for 5 hours and 30 minutes.
Despite the lack of hard dock, it is said that the crew were unable to enter
the station due to a faulty hatch on their own spacecraft.
tried to undock from the Salyut, the jammed hatch
impeded the docking mechanism, preventing undocking. After several attempts he
was able to undock and land.
Only a night landing on Soviet territory
was possible, which meant the spacecraft could not be oriented for retrofire.
The landing commission started planning for an emergency landing in South
America, Africa, or Australia. But Vladimir
reported the gyroscopes and orientation sensors were
functioning well. He proposed that he orient on the dayside, spin up the gyro
platform, and let the gyros orient the spacecraft on the night side for
retrofire. The plan was followed and the spacecraft was targeted for a landing
area 80-100 km southwest of Karaganda.
So it was the first night landing in
the history of human spaceflights.
During the landing, the Soyuz air supply
became toxic, and Nikolai
(much like the case of Vance
during the Apollo ASTP
overcome and became unconscious.