Kosmos 57 (russian: Космос 57 meaning ''Cosmos 57'') was an unmanned

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

spacecraft launched on 22 February 1965. The craft was essentially an unmanned version of

Voskhod 2 Voskhod 2 (russian: Восход-2, , ''Sunrise-2'') was a Soviet crewed space mission in March 1965. The Vostok-based Voskhod 3KD spacecraft with two crew members on board, Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov, was equipped with an inflatable ai ...

. Its primary mission was to test the Volga

airlock An airlock, air-lock or air lock, often abbreviated to just lock, is a compartment with doors which can be sealed against pressure which permits the passage of people and objects between environments of differing pressure or atmospheric compo ...

. The test was successful, but the craft was lost shortly after. The spaceflight is designated under the Kosmos system, placing it with many other Soviet scientific and military satellites.

Mission

The unmanned craft was launched three weeks before Voskhod 2. The primary objective of Voskhod 2 was to conduct a spacewalk, which relied on the inflatable Volga airlock. Kosmos 57 was to test the performance of the airlock. The airlock opened and closed successfully and the craft was re-pressurized without flaw.

Destruction

The unmanned spacecraft was destroyed on its third

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as ...

around

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. Two ground stations, one in Klyuchi and the other in

Yelizovo Yelizovo (russian: Е́лизово) is a town in Kamchatka Krai, Russia, located on the Avacha River northwest of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Population: History Founded in 1848 as the '' selo'' of Stary Ostrog (), it was renamed Zavoyko () i ...

, sent simultaneous commands, instead of sequentially as planned, instructing the craft to depressurize its airlock. The craft interpreted this as an order to begin the descent and a

propulsion Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived f ...

error put the craft into a tumble. Approximately twenty-nine minutes later, the craft's automatic self-destruct function activated. The craft was completely destroyed to prevent sensitive information from literally falling into enemy hands. Over 100 pieces of the spacecraft were tracked, falling into the ocean between 31 March and 6 April 1965. No other test or backup spacecraft was built with an EVA port. The decision was made to go ahead with Voskhod 2 anyway, due to a one-year lead time to construct a replacement. Planned follow-on Voskhod missions were cancelled, including the Soviet Air Force version, long-duration one-man flight.https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1965-012A - 27 February 2020 File:Vostok_spacecraft.jpg, Vostok spacecraft File:Voskhod_1_and_2.svg, Voskhod 1 and Voskhod 2 spacecraft File:Voskhod-2_airlock_and_spacesuit.jpg, Volga airlock and Berkut spacesuit like those used for the spacewalk of Alexey Leonov on the Voskhod 2 mission, Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, Moscow.

References

Earth observation satellites of the Soviet Union Voskhod program Spacecraft launched in 1965 1965 in the Soviet Union

Mission

Destruction

See also

References