Kosmos 133 (russian: Космос 133, meaning "Kosmos 133"), Soyuz 7K-OK No.2, was the first uncrewed test flight of the Soyuz spacecraft, and first mission of the

Soyuz programme The Soyuz programme ( , ; russian: link=no, Союз , meaning "Union") is a human spaceflight programme initiated by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. The Soyuz spacecraft was originally part of a Moon landing project intended to put a So ...

, as part of the

Soviet space programme The Soviet space program (russian: Космическая программа СССР, Kosmicheskaya programma SSSR) was the national space program of the Former countries and empires, former Soviet Union, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( ...

Launch

Launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard the maiden flight of the Soyuz 11A511 s/n U15000-02 launch vehicle. Kosmos 133 was planned "all up" test, to include an automated docking with a second Soyuz spacecraft (

Soyuz 7K-OK No.1 Soyuz 7K-OK No.1 was an uncrewed spacecraft of the Soyuz programme, originally intended to perform a rendezvous maneouvre with Kosmos 133 (Soyuz 7K-OK No.2). After the Kosmos 133 mission failed, the rocket was moved to the launch pad on 12 Dec ...

), which was scheduled for launch the day after Kosmos 133.

Mission

Kosmos 133 was operated in a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

, on 28 November 1966, it had a

perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ell ...

of , an

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ell ...

of , an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

of 51.9°, and an

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...

of 88.4 minutes.

Return

Problems found during ground testing of the second spacecraft resulted in its launch being delayed, and it was destroyed when its launch vehicle exploded on its launch pad following a scrubbed launch attempt in December 1966. Before this, the

attitude control system Spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle/satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, et ...

(ACS) of Kosmos 133 malfunctioned, resulting in rapid consumption of orientation fuel, leaving it spinning at 2

rpm Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

. After large efforts by ground control and 5 attempts at retrofire over two days, the craft was finally coming down for a landing. Due to the inaccuracy of the reentry burn, it was determined that the capsule would land in China. The self-destruct command was given and the satellite exploded 30 November 1966 at 10:21 GMT. The fireball passed over west Japan and was recorded by photos and a sketch. Kōichirō Tomita identified that it was the Kosmos 133 spacecraft (30 November 1966).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kosmos 0133 Kosmos satellites Soyuz uncrewed test flights 1966 in the Soviet Union Spacecraft launched in 1966