In the early morning of June 30, 1971, the Central Asian steppes were already "sun-drenched." At this moment, the Soviet people are looking forward to their space hero coming home, because this day is the day when the Soviet manned spacecraft "Soyuz 11" landed on Earth.
Since late June, all the moscow television stations and broadcasters have been broadcasting images and news of the three space heroes on Soyuz 11 almost daily. Their names were: Victor Pachaev, Vladislav Volkov, Georgy Dobrovolisky. Although their names sounded awkward (even to the Soviets), this did not at all prevent the three of them from becoming the "top class" of the Soviet Union at the time. For the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and their people know — what kind of people are most worthy of respect and admiration.
The trio entered space on the Soyuz 11 spacecraft to complete an unprecedented "space mission" - to complete the docking with the "space station" and enter the space station to live for twenty days (more). And all this stems from the "space race" in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The "Cold War" The crazy "arms race" between China, the United States and the Soviet Union has greatly promoted the progress of human science and technology, especially the achievements made by the two countries in the field of aerospace, and some of them may not be able to be achieved to this day.
The birth of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft is the product of the "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union.
In 1969, the United States took a step ahead of the Soviet Union and left the "footprints" of human beings on the lunar surface, realizing the first human landing on the moon. With the United States already ahead of the curve, the Soviet Union decided to change its strategy and find a new direction of competition. In February 1970, the Central Committee of the USSR and the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued a directive requiring the space industry to create and operate a long-term space station. A year later, with its strong scientific research capabilities, the Soviet Union successfully developed and launched a space station called "Salyut 1", and then they followed the footsteps of "Salyut 1" and fired Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 11 (spacecraft).
On April 22, 1971, Soyuz 10 was successfully launched. Originally, the Soviet aviation department planned to let the Soyuz 10 dock with Salyut 1 and stay in space for more than twenty days before returning. Unfortunately, although Soyuz 10 eventually docked, the astronauts inside failed to enter the space station. A few hours after the docking was completed, the two spacecraft disengaged. Reluctantly, Soyuz 10 returned to Earth after forty-eight hours of continued flight.
In this way, the unfinished task of League 10 fell to League 11. I don't know if providence is hinting at something, but just a week before the launch of Soyuz 11, astronaut Kubasov found "lung disease" during a physical examination. At first, everyone thought that it would be enough to replace Kubasov, but considering the close cooperation between astronauts, it was probably more risky to temporarily replace the "new person". Eventually, the soyuz 11 astronauts were replaced by the entire group, which is the three we mentioned at the beginning: Pachaev, Volkov, and Dobrovolsky.
On June 6, 1971 (Moscow time), Soyuz 11 was launched, and humanity once again challenged space. But this time, they succeeded! From the moment of launch, to the completion of the docking at 7:55 a.m. on June 7, the three astronauts had been off the Earth's surface for less than twenty-four hours. Three hours later, the three astronauts completed an inspection of the spacecraft's systems and airtightness before opening the hatch. Astronaut Pachaev became the first person to enter the space station, and then two other astronauts followed. During the time they lived on the space station, in addition to a series of astronomical observations, the three of them also carried out observations on the growth of plants in weightlessness, as well as some medical experiments, and obtained a lot of valuable information and data. And during the docking period, they also successfully implemented two space station orbital lifts.
In this way, the three stayed until June 29, successfully completed the mission, and set a record for the longest human stay in space - 23 days, 18 hours and 22 minutes.
At about 6 p.m. on June 29, the three astronauts "packed their bags" and returned to the Soyuz 11 spacecraft one after another, and were "finished" by Volkov. Soon, however, Volkov discovered the problem: when sealing the connection between the return module of The Soyuz 11 and the orbital module with the hatch, a status light could not be extinguished and indicated a "sealing error". An anxious Volkov asked headquarters for instructions on the next step. Volkov was then told to "put a piece of paper on the sensor." As soon as Volkov did so, the sensors immediately assumed that the hatch had been closed, and then the status light that had been flashing went out.
At about 6:30 p.m., Soyuz 11 broke away from the space station, and after taking a photo survey of the station, they began their journey home.
At about 10:30 p.m., Soyuz 11 began to slow down, and the orbital and service modules separated one after another. Next, the "return capsule" will carry the three space heroes back to Earth. So far, everything is normal, and the astronauts have not encountered any dangerous situations. Soon, something strange happened, and from between ten forty and eleven o'clock, the ground control center repeatedly tried to make radio contact with the return capsule, all of which failed.
At eleven and two o'clock in the night, the ship's parachute opened on time in preparation for landing; at eleven o'clock at eleven o'clock, the ship fell gently to the ground without any violent collision and shaking. However, when the search and rescue personnel found the spacecraft (there must be medical personnel at the scene after the spacecraft landed), they opened the hatch and found that all three people had died!
The leaders of the space agency then received the code from the rescue team: 1-1-1. This string of numbers is a codename system used by the Soviet Union at that time, using the range of 5 to 1 to indicate the health of astronauts, of which 5 represents good state and "1" represents death. Imagine how shocked people are when they see 1-1-1.
Autopsies revealed that all three had symptoms of lung hemorrhage and cerebral hemorrhage, and detected high concentrations of nitrogen from their blood. It seems that this is a rapid death due to decompression. More than a month later, Soviet officials gave the "cause of the accident" of the space disaster: it turned out that thirty minutes before landing, the spacecraft was descending at the same time, and the air pressure in the cabin rapidly decreased, resulting in the death of the astronauts. The reason for the rapid decrease in air pressure was that the spacecraft's sealing system failed, which eventually led to tragedy.
But such claims are clearly not detailed enough and not "convincing" enough. It was not until two years later that a more detailed "statement report" from the Soviet side was published: an aeration valve located between the orbital module and the return module was opened (non-artificially) during the return to Earth. And because more than a dozen thermal blasters on the spacecraft were ignited at the same time, the "force" generated by the blasting caused the "pressure balancing valve mechanism" in the cabin to no longer be sealed, so that in a certain period of time, the three astronauts could hear the sound of "leaking". During the landing, Pachaev also tried to maintain the pressure in the "return capsule" by manually operating the pump. But it was too late, and the three of them could not escape the fate of death in the end.
The tragedy of Soyuz 11 immediately began to improve the "Soyuz" series of spacecraft, and it took more than two years to design a second-generation "Soyuz" spacecraft, greatly upgrading the safety performance of the spacecraft, changing the number of crews from 3 to 2 people, and requiring astronauts to wear spacesuits when lifting off and returning to Earth. The "Salyut-1" space station has not been visited by new astronauts due to accident investigation and evaluation. Later, after more than one hundred and seventy days of operation, Salyut I landed in the Pacific Ocean to complete "scrapping".
Although from the first step of mankind to space, we are doomed to encounter countless difficulties and setbacks. The tragedy of League 11, in particular, shows that even the simplest "landing process" is equally dangerous. It can even be said that before the astronauts walk out of the hatch and appear in front of people's eyes, "space travel" cannot be counted as "success".
But has the progress of human civilization finally reached today's height after overcoming one difficulty after another? Therefore, whether it is an individual or a country and a nation, only by experiencing the process of "constantly surpassing oneself" can we "cast brilliance".
bibliography:
"The Night Here Is Quiet: The Tragedy of the League 11 Return Capsule"
"Heroic Lamentations - The Story of Alliance No. 11" By Lu Dianjun
"The Past and Present Life of the International Space Station" Gong Cobalter
"Mankind's First Space Station - Salyut 1 Space Station" Han Zhiyi