Soyuz 10 (russian: 'Союз 10', ''Union 10'') was launched on 22 April 1971 as the world's first mission to the world's first

space station A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station i ...

, the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Salyut 1 Salyut 1 (DOS-1) (russian: Салют-1) was the world's first space station launched into low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971. The Salyut program followed this with five more successful launches of seven more stations. The fi ...

. The docking was not successful and the crew,

Vladimir Shatalov Vladimir Aleksandrovich Shatalov (russian: Владимир Александрович Шаталов; December 8, 1927 – June 15, 2021) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 4, Soyuz 8, a ...

Aleksei Yeliseyev Aleksei Stanislavovich Yeliseyev (russian: Алексей Станиславович Елисеев; born 13 July 1934) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut who flew on three missions in the Soyuz programme as a flight engineer: Soyuz 5 , Soyuz 8, and S ...

, and

Nikolai Rukavishnikov Nikolai Nikolayevich Rukavishnikov (; 18 September 1932 – 19 October 2002) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 10, Soyuz 16, and Soyuz 33. Two of these missions, Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 33 were intended ...

, returned to

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 ...

without having entered the station. It would be the first of numerous docking failures in the Soviet space station program.The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-10.htm

Spacecraft

The spacecraft was the first of the upgraded

Soyuz 7K-OKS Soyuz 7K-OKS (also known as Soyuz 7KT-OK) is a version of the Soyuz spacecraft and was the first spacecraft designed for space station flights. Its only crewed flights were conducted in 1971, with Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 11. Design The two craft ...

, featuring the new "probe and drogue" docking mechanism with internal crew transfer capability, intended for space station visits.

Mission

The

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

, and

were able to navigate their Soyuz 10 spacecraft to the Salyut 1 station, yet during docking they ran into problems. The automatic control system failed during approach, owing to a serious design oversight. Soft dock (contact between the spacecraft and station without a full link) was achieved on 24 April 1971 at 01:47 GMT, but the computer sensed an abnormality in the spacecraft's alignment and began firing the attitude control jets to compensate. With Soyuz 10 being pushed to one side by the attitude control system, it became impossible to achieve hard dock, and large quantities of propellant were expended doing so. The docking attempt was called off, but further difficulty occurred when the probe would not come out of the space station's docking cone. The obvious solution was simply to jettison the orbital module and leave it attached to Salyut 1, but this would make it impossible for future Soyuz missions to dock; thus, the space station would have to be abandoned. Eventually, ground controllers realised that the cosmonauts could throw a

circuit breaker A circuit breaker is an electrical safety device designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage caused by an overcurrent or short circuit. Its basic function is to interrupt current flow to protect equipment and to prevent the risk ...

in the docking mechanism, for interrupting the power supply would cause the probe to automatically retract. This procedure worked, and undocking was completed and the capsule returned to Earth later on 24 April 1971 at 23:40 GMT. The automatic control system would be redesigned on future Soyuz spacecraft.

Crew

Backup crew

Reserve crew

Mission parameters

* Mass: * Perigee: * Apogee: * Inclination: 51.6° * Period: 89.0 minutes

Return

Retrorockets were fired at the first opportunity after undocking to permit return to

. One last hitch presented itself when toxic fumes began to fill the capsule during reentry, causing Rukavishnikov to pass out; however, all three crew members were recovered unscathed. The landing at 120 km at the northwest of

Karaganda Karaganda or Qaraghandy ( kk, Қарағанды/Qarağandy, ; russian: Караганда, ) is the capital of Karaganda Region in the Republic of Kazakhstan. It is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, fourth most populous city in Kaza ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

, the first (pre-dawn) landing of a crewed spacecraft, was a success.

References

{{Orbital launches in 1971 Crewed Soyuz missions 1971 in spaceflight 1971 in the Soviet Union Spacecraft launched in 1971 Spacecraft which reentered in 1971