Soyuz T-9 (
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
: Союз Т-9, Union T-9) was the 4th expedition to
Salyut 7
Salyut 7 (russian: Салют-7; en, Salute 7) (a.k.a. DOS-6, short for Durable Orbital Station) was a space station in low Earth orbit from April 1982 to February 1991. It was first crewed in May 1982 with two crew via Soyuz T-5, and last vi ...
following the failed docking of
Soyuz T-8
Soyuz T-8 was a crewed mission to the Salyut 7 space station in 1983. Shortly into the mission, the spacecraft failed to dock with the space station due to an incident involving an antenna being torn off the craft by the protective launch shroud. ...
. It returned lab experiments 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 ...
. The next mission,
Soyuz 7K-ST No.16L (Soyuz 10a), had exploded and thus failed to launch.
Soyuz T-9 achieved successful docking with the station, although the mission was bracketed by the failed attempt of Soyuz T-8 and the launch pad abort of Soyuz T-10 which would follow immediately.
Crew
Backup crew
Mission parameters
* Mass: 6850 kg
* Perigee: 201 km
* Apogee: 229 km
* Inclination: 51.6°
* Period: 88.6 minutes
Mission highlights
Fourth expedition to
Salyut 7
Salyut 7 (russian: Салют-7; en, Salute 7) (a.k.a. DOS-6, short for Durable Orbital Station) was a space station in low Earth orbit from April 1982 to February 1991. It was first crewed in May 1982 with two crew via Soyuz T-5, and last vi ...
. Its mission was heavily impacted by the
Soyuz T-8
Soyuz T-8 was a crewed mission to the Salyut 7 space station in 1983. Shortly into the mission, the spacecraft failed to dock with the space station due to an incident involving an antenna being torn off the craft by the protective launch shroud. ...
docking failure and the
Soyuz T-10a
Soyuz 7K-ST No.16L, sometimes known as Soyuz T-10a or Soyuz T-10-1, was an unsuccessful Soyuz mission intended to visit the Salyut 7 space station, which was occupied by the Soyuz T-9 crew. However, it never finished its launch countdown; th ...
Soyuz booster failures which bracketed it.
Almost immediately after docking at Salyut 7's aft port, the crew entered
Kosmos 1443
The TKS spacecraft (russian: Транспортный корабль снабжения, , ''Transport Supply Spacecraft'', GRAU index 11F72) was a Soviet Union, Soviet spacecraft conceived in the late 1960s for resupply flights to the military ...
and commenced transferring the 3.5 tons of cargo lining its walls to Salyut 7.
[ ]
On 27 July 1983, a small object struck a Salyut 7 viewport. It blasted out a 4-mm crater, but did not penetrate the outer of the window's two panes. The Soviets believed it was a member of the
Delta Aquariid meteor shower
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extre ...
, though it may have been a small piece of
orbital debris
Space debris (also known as space junk, space pollution, space waste, space trash, or space garbage) are defunct human-made objects in space—principally in Earth orbit—which no longer serve a useful function. These include derelict spacecr ...
.
The crew loaded Cosmos 1443's
VA capsule
The Vozvraschaemyi Apparat (russian: Возвращаемый Аппарат, lit=Return Vehicle, GRAU index 11F74), or VA spacecraft, was a Soviet crew capsule, intended to serve as a crewed launch and reentry vehicle. Initially designed for t ...
with 350 kg of experiment results and hardware no longer in use. It could have held 500 kg, had they had that much to put in. Cosmos 1443 then undocked, in spite of Western predictions that the
FGB component would remain attached to Salyut 7 as a space station module. The VA capsule soft-landed on 23 August 1983, and the FGB component continued in orbit until it was deorbited over the Pacific Ocean on 19 September 1983.
The crew also filmed scenes for the movie ''
Return from Orbit''.
Vozvrashchenie s orbity (1984) - Trivia
- IMDb
See also
* List of human spaceflights to Salyut space stations
This is a chronological list of human spaceflights to the Salyut space stations. Prior to Salyut 6, flights were referred to by the designation of the Soyuz spacecraft that transported the crew to and from the station. Flights to Salyut 6 and Salyu ...
* List of Salyut expeditions
This is a chronological list of expeditions to the Salyut space stations. Initially these expeditions were not numbered, however the crews of Salyut 6 and Salyut 7 were numbered , where ''n'' is sequentially increased with each expedition to that p ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soyuz T-09
Crewed Soyuz missions
1983 in spaceflight
1983 in the Soviet Union
Spacecraft launched in 1983