• Forum
• SITREP
• Military
• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security

• Space

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Public Eye

Soyuzes 7 and 8:  "Podsadka Option" Test in Earth orbit, 1969

Another interesting revelation comes from the late Russian docking equipment expert and engineer Vladimir Syromyatnikov.  His 100 Stories about Dockings and Other Adventures in Space and on Earth was originally published in Russian in 2003.[14] 

I eagerly perused this volume, especially his recounting of the effort at Kazan to develop and test the equipment for the "Podsadka" ("Transplanting") option. This scenario describes a mission where a manned Soyuz and an uncrewed L-1 lunar spacecraft would rendezvous in Earth orbit and have two cosmonauts transfer from one spaceship to the other prior to leaving for the Moon. 

What is still not clear is whether there would have been a physical docking, or merely a very close rendezvous with EVA of the cosmonauts from one craft to another, perhaps via an inflatable tunnel.  (Similar open-space EVA transfer tests-without an inflatable tunnel--took place on the last few Gemini missions, where the astronauts had few hand-holds to move from the Gemini onto the docked Agena propulsion stage.)

Most everyone, including myself, thought that this "Podsadka" option died soon after Komarov's ill-fated ending-despite Syromyatnikov saying the equipment was fully tested on the ground.  (An indication that development continued beyond April 1967.)  Frustratingly, neither diagrams nor any photographs of the "Podsadka" equipment were printed in the book. 

An English-language version was published in 2005. And, like similar Russian technical texts subsequently issued in English, there is usually a reasonable expectation that more information will be published than in the original mother tongue.

When I once again went through the "Podsadka" section, I was pleasantly rewarded.  Syromyatnikov added to the section, in one last sentence, the surprise material.   "Actually one of them [that is, a set of "Podsadka" equipment] flew in space in 1969, but Soyuz 8 failed to rendezvous with Soyuz 7."[15]

And that prompts additional questions.  If the manned lunar program was allegedly "dead" for all intent and purposes by October 1969, what were the USSR engineers doing on this troika ("threesome") mission?  For how long was this mission actually planned to be executed (notwithstanding Nikolai Kamanin's diary entries that appear to emphasize that the first quarter of 1969 as the starting point, while leaving out what I would consider either the main or significant reason for the mission)?[16]

Which cosmonauts trained for "Podsadka" out of the Soyuz 7 and 8 crews, and where did they train (or could this be some residual training from 1968)?  On what simulators did they train, and for how long?  What exactly were the anticipated procedures that would have followed suit had the rendezvous in orbit been successful?  How many cosmonauts would have transferred?  Would they have been space-suited?

The mission was significant enough to have concrete plans for the third spacecraft Soyuz 6 to film the entire rendezvous/transfer procedure.  And that brings up additionally the notion of whether L-1 was truly dead, or whether "Podsadka" also had some sort of application to the L-3 project (as envisioned in 1969). 

Despite efforts by myself and colleague Charles Vick (a space historian/rocketry analyst situated in Virginia) to locate such pictures, actual clear unambiguous photography of the fore-ends of the Soyuz 7 and 8 spacecraft (while in the assembly/grooming stage) have not been found.  What did the docking/rendezvous equipment look like while stowed, and when deployed?  And why did space researchers have to wait until 2005 to learn of this additional, yet significant wrinkle relating to the USSR's October 1969 manned space missions? 

Our Russia-based colleagues can greatly aid in getting answers, by directly holding discussions with Syromyatnikov's colleagues who worked with him at Kazan, and any other available docking-equipment developers who worked on the Soyuz 7 and 8 mission.