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From: glenn%ll-vlsi@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
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Message-ID: <416@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Jul-84 16:33:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.416
Posted: Wed Jul 25 16:33:35 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 07:56:52 EDT
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Subject: Soviet Soyuz T-12 flight

The latest Soviet space flight (Soyuz T-12, launched July 17) has received
almost no notice in the press here, perhaps because it seems old hat besides
the space shuttle flights.  Nevertheless on close inspection there are a
number of interesting features of this Soyuz that indicate changes in the
Soviet space program.  Here are a list of the ones that I have noticed
along with some personal projections of what they may mean.

First the flight engineer in this 3 crew Soyuz is Svetlana Savitskaya, the
woman who flew up to the Salyut about two years ago.  The fact that she was
sent up again after a relatively short period of time (as far as spaceflights
go) indicates that she had little in the way of problems in adjusting to
space.  Also note that historically the Russians have sent their cosmonauts
on only 3 missions, with the person going as engineer on the second flight,
and mission commander on the third.  Then that person has been moved up into
the management of the space program.  From the space spectacular point of
view it would have made more sense to send a new woman up ("Now we have had 3
females in orbit and the US had only 1").  Hence it seems likely that
Svetlana is being aimed at the position of commander of the womans'
cosmonaut corp.  A slight possibility is that she was the backup person
for some other woman.  We will know for certain if she gets a third flight
in the near future as the mission commander.  Either way it seems certain
that the Soviets are expanding the use of woman in their programs.

Secondly, the mission commander, Vladimir Dzhanibekov, is unusual also because
this is his fourth mission when, as noted in the first point, the Russians
have restricted their men to three missions before this.  Hence the Soviets
may be setting up their cosmonaut corp, which is rather large in number, to
generate more highly experience spacemen.  This suggests an expanded space
program in the near future.  It does not seem likely that he was simply
the backup man, they have lots of two flight experienced men.

Thirdly, the docking for this flight with the Salyut space station took place
in a 355 x 335 Km orbit.  However previously the Soyuz have followed a strict
rule: two man crews have docked above 300 Km, while 3 crew ships docked below
300 Km.  James Oberg calculated that previously the fuel needed to raise the
ship to the higher orbit was 110 Kg, about the weight of one cosmonaut.  Hence
the need for this difference.  Since the Salyut is always brought down to the
rendezvous orbit prior to the launch this means that the Soviets have
improved either the A-2 launcher or the Soyuz-T capsule, and will probably
used such higher cargo capacity in the future (perhaps in their Progress
cargo craft if it is the launcher).

Fourthly, this mission started a little early for their current landing window,
which is about July 24 according to Clarke in a recent Spaceflight magazine
article.  Due to safety restrictions the Russians only bring people down from
their space station during a specific landing period that occurs for about one
week every two months.  The Russians have been launching ships only two days
before the landing window opens so that if something goes wrong they can 
recover the capsule quickly and safely.  This may indicate that the Soyuz has
more supplies and can stay up longer (possibly related to point 3) or that they
are will to extend their landing window from the hour before sunset
restriction they have kept for almost the past decade.  Either on has
significant impacts on their manned program.  Also as of 3 am GMT July 25
the Soviets had not stated that the Soyuz was leaving.  Since all
previous flights lasted only eight days for crew visits to the Salyut it
will an important change if this one does last longer.

Finally the fact that a flight occurred at this time means that the Salyut
crew, which has been up for >170 days now, will not land before late September,
from the point 4 restrictions.  That will mean that they will have set a new
record of about 240 days.  If you want speculation on top of that consider that
one of the station crew is a doctor.  If they were going to try for a full
one year mission then that is just what they would want on board to check that
things were going well.  If the Soyuz ships are exchanged in the current flight
that makes a longer mission than 240 days more likely

All in all this seems to be a rather unusual flight.  Has any else noticed
other strange facts about this one?

Personally I find the contradiction shown by the comparison of the Soviet and
western (especially US) space programs recently rather depressing.  The
Russian hardware is probably about what we could have made a decade ago,
but they obviously have the will to push it to the limit and aggressively
pursue manned efforts in space.  This country has the hardware to do things
better then the Soviets, but seems to lack the will to really push things.
Look at battle the L5 society had to go through to insure the passage of
the space station program's funding for the first year!  That only means
that we have a chance that in 1992 we could have something manned as often
and long as the Salyut has been crewed for the past few years.  Does anyone
really think that when the funding costs really get high for the space station
there will not be strong efforts to stretch the program out till 1995 or even
2000?  That is what happened to the shuttle, and look at how the low funding
of the early years is still creating problems in that program.  If we are
right about there being important and useful things for mankind that will
come out of the space station I see considerable evidence to suggest the
Russians will be producing them first over the next decade.  Let us hope
that their lack of advanced hardware will prevent them from getting too far
ahead.

                                      Glenn Chapman