Salyut 2
Encyclopedia
Salyut 2 ( meaning Salute 2) was a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 space station
Space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...

 which was launched in 1973 as part of the Salyut programme. It was the first Almaz
Almaz
The Almaz program was a series of military space stations launched by the Soviet Union under cover of the civilian Salyut DOS-17K program after 1971....

 military space station to fly. Within two weeks of launch the station had lost attitude control and depressurised, leaving it unusable. It decayed from orbit by 28 May 1973, without any crews having visited it.

Spacecraft

Salyut 2 was an Almaz military space station.
It was designated part of the Salyut programme in order to conceal the existence of the two separate space station programmes.

Salyut 2 was 14.55 metres (47.7 ft) with a diameter of 4.15 metres (13.6 ft), and had an internal habitable volume of 90 cubic metres (3,178.3 cu ft). At launch it had a mass of 18950 kilograms (41,777.6 lb). A single aft-mounted docking port was intended for use by Soyuz spacecraft carrying cosmonauts to work aboard the station. Two solar arrays mounted at the aft end of the station near the docking port provided power to the station, generating a total of 3,120 watts of electricity. The station was equipped with 32 attitude control thrusters, as well as two RD-0225 engines, each capable of generating 3.9 kilonewtons (3,900 N) of thrust, for orbital manoeuvres.

Launch

Salyut 2 was launched from Site 81/23
Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 81
Site 81 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome is a launch site used, along with Site 200, by Proton rockets. It consists of two launch pads, areas 23 and 24. Area 24 is currently used for Proton-K and Proton-M launches, while Area 23 is currently inactive....

 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome
Baikonur Cosmodrome
The Baikonur Cosmodrome , also called Tyuratam, is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about east of the Aral Sea, north of the Syr Darya river, near Tyuratam railway station, at 90 meters above sea level...

, atop a three-stage Proton-K
Proton-K
The Proton-K, also designated Proton 8K82K after its GRAU index, 8K82K, is a Russian, previously Soviet, carrier rocket derived from the earlier Proton. It was built by Khrunichev, and is launched from sites 81 and 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan...

 rocket, serial number 283-01. The launch took place at 09:00:00 UTC on 3 April 1973, and successfully placed Salyut 2 into low Earth orbit
Low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit is generally defined as an orbit within the locus extending from the Earth’s surface up to an altitude of 2,000 km...

. Upon reaching orbit, Salyut 2 was assigned the International Designator
International Designator
The International Designator, also known as COSPAR designation, and in the United States as NSSDC ID, is an international naming convention for satellites...

 1973-017A, whilst NORAD gave it the Satellite Catalog Number
Satellite Catalog Number
The Satellite Catalog Number is a sequential 5-digit number assigned by USSPACECOM to all Earth orbiting satellites in order of identification. Before USSPACECOM, the catalog was maintained by NORAD...

 06398. The third stage of the Proton-K rocket entered orbit along with Salyut 2. On 4 April, it was catalogued in a 192 by orbit, inclined at 51.4 degrees.

Failure

Three days after the launch of Salyut 2, the Proton's spent third stage exploded. Thirteen days into its mission, Salyut 2 began to depressurise, and its attitude control system malfunctioned. An inquiry into the failure initially determined that a fuel line had burst, burning a hole in the station. It was later discovered that a piece of debris from the third stage had collided with the station, causing the damage.

Several pieces of debris separated from the space station at around the time of its failure, including both solar panels, which removed its ability to generate power. Three pieces of debris from the station were catalogued, and had decayed from orbit
Orbital decay
Orbital decay is the process of prolonged reduction in the altitude of a satellite's orbit.This can be due to drag produced by an atmosphere due to frequent collisions between the satellite and surrounding air molecules. The drag experienced by the object is larger in the case of increased solar...

 by 13 May. The remainder of the station reentered the atmosphere
Atmospheric reentry
Atmospheric entry is the movement of human-made or natural objects as they enter the atmosphere of a celestial body from outer space—in the case of Earth from an altitude above the Kármán Line,...

 on May 28, 1973 over the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

.

See also

  • Salyut
    Salyut
    The Salyut program was the first space station program undertaken by the Soviet Union, which consisted of a series of nine space stations launched over a period of eleven years from 1971 to 1982...

  • TKS spacecraft
    TKS spacecraft
    TKS spacecraft was a Soviet spacecraft design in the late 1960s intended to supply the military Almaz space station. The spacecraft was designed for manned or autonomous cargo resupply use...

  • Almaz
    Almaz
    The Almaz program was a series of military space stations launched by the Soviet Union under cover of the civilian Salyut DOS-17K program after 1971....

  • Mir
    Mir
    Mir was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, at first by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. Assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996, Mir was the first modular space station and had a greater mass than that of any previous spacecraft, holding the record for the...

  • Skylab
    Skylab
    Skylab was a space station launched and operated by NASA, the space agency of the United States. Skylab orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979, and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and other systems. It was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a mass of...

  • International Space Station
    International Space Station
    The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

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