.jpg)
An electrical failure occurred during orbit in a space station of the Soviet Union and its contact with the ground station was lost. It was fortunate that when this accident happened in this space station named Salyut Sen, there was no crew present in it at that time, but along with the power failure, It went out of control and even left its orbit. This issue was the most serious issue to arise in the space history of the Soviet Union. An uncontrolled space station flying at a speed of 27000 kilometers per hour was no less than a time bomb. But all the options to get back the control had failed but then something happened which made the Soviet Union proud. During the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union, both countries showed their strength. While this show of power was worth crores of dollars, during the Cold War, such things were also invented by the people of both countries which we are still enjoying the benefits of, such as the internet, jet aircraft, and Global Positioning Satellites i.e. GPS During this time, such steps were also taken to humiliate each other in the eyes of the world, which humans could not even think of earlier and when this happens, the name of space race comes first, both the countries are one. There were so many positions from the other that their objective was to launch as many space missions as possible. During this race, in 1970, many space stations were launched by both countries whose objective was to do research on various things in space. Soviet space stations It was named Salute, while the USA named its space station program Sky Lab.
These space stations were small and were launched at the same time. After doing research in space for a limited time, they were brought back to Earth. Now the competition was that who would make their astronauts stay in the space station for the longest time. The tussle between the two was so deep that when the USA named its space crews Astronauts, the Soviets did not even want to use this name, but They named their space crew Cosmonauts. In 1980, the Soviet Union decided to build a full-scale, larger Mir space station instead of these small space stations to teach the USA a lesson. There was a lot of delay in its development and at that time Their Salyut Six space station had completed its time in space, so by the time they launched the Mir space station, the Soviets launched the Salyut Seven space station because they wanted to maintain their presence in space during this time. The special feature of Salyut 7 The thing was that it had docking ports at the front and back. With the help of these docking ports, another spacecraft could be attached to them during orbit, due to which rotation of the crew and supply war was possible at the same time. Salyut 7 was launched in April 1982. It was launched through a Proton rocket and on May 13, the crew was sent for a mission in which they made a new world record by staying for 211 days. Their task was to launch a radio satellite weighing 28 kg through the trash airlock of the space station. It was the first communication satellite to be launched from any manned space vehicle.
The first year of Salyut 7 was successful but after that, obstacles started arising one by one. On September 99, 1983, cosmonauts noticed zero pressure in a fuel tank. This was not normal in any way because zero pressure means that a tank is completely empty. After investigation, a spot of fuel leakage was found outside the space station. Let us tell you here that due to the lack of atmospheric pressure in space, If there is a hole the size of a needle in the state, then the vacuum of space will suck everything out of it and the same happened with the fuel tank of Salyut 7. This hole should not be damaged, which is why it was very important to close it on time, but unfortunately, the cosmonauts There was a shortage of some tools, so the ground station launched a second spacecraft to Salyut 7 only for the delivery of tools, which had to be docked from Salyut Sen. It also had extra crew and necessary tools. This repair was very complex to do at that time. With the help of special tools and old welding, the hole in the fuel tank was finally closed. This repair by Salyut was very impressive but the upcoming difficulty was going to turn their sigh of happiness into trouble. Cosmonauts of Salyut 7 space station in 1984 Now the monitoring of the space station was the responsibility of the Soviet ground team which was doing this work remotely. A few months after the return of the cosmonauts, on 11th February 1985, suddenly the salute sen Contact with the ground station team was lost. Looking at the fault logs, it was found that some kind of electrical surge had occurred inside the Salyut 7 in orbit. The ground team activated the secondary communication system to restore Raabta. Now the Salyut Contact with SEN was restored but immediately after this there was another electrical surge and now all contact with the space station was lost, not only this but it also moved away from its orbit, which was a dangerous moment for the Soviets. 16 The meter-long space station had become completely silent and out of control without any crew. When this news reached the USA, they were shocked.
There was no better opportunity than this. USA wanted to capture Salute Sen and bring it back to Earth with the help of its cargo bay shuttle and then become a hero in the eyes of the world. The Soviet Union could also have done this but unfortunately at that time Work was going on on their Buran shuttle, hence the Soviets couldn't capture the Salyut Sen. In the eyes of the world, the Soviet Union was quite helpless in this matter, so they decided that they would repair it by sending a crew of two cosmonauts. It would have been much easier in that case when the space station was live because the docking mechanism installed in it automatically connects with other spacecraft. The intention of the Soviet Union meant that the space station orbiting at a speed of 27000 km per hour would first have to be docked manually. Will be tracked and then the space station will have to be aligned with it and docked manually in this entire process, even a small mistake can take the life of the sent crew, but apart from this option, there was no other option left on 6 June 1985. Soyuz spacecraft was launched for the rescue of Salyut 7. A laser range finder was also installed in it so that they would be able to determine the range of Salyut 7. Cosmonauts also took night vision goggles with them because manual docking may have to be done at that time. After two days of orbiting in complete darkness, the cosmonauts finally approached Salyut 7. The first thing they noticed was the missed solar panels, which meant there was a complete electrical failure because the solar panels on the spacecraft failed due to the electrical failure. They are connected to actuators that position the solar panels towards the sun at all times.
Using a laser range finder, the crew first aligned themselves with the Salute Sen and then matched its rotation with the rotation of their spacecraft. He moved closer to the space station and finally, he managed to manually dock the Soyuz with Salyut Sain. Now the moment had arrived for which everyone was waiting because no one knew why Salyut Sain was closed and who was inside it. There was a hidden danger when they opened the hatch of the Salyut after docking and immediately felt a blast of cold air because the Salyut 7 had lost power for a long time due to this the heating system inside was also switched off and it was completely dark inside. And everything was found frozen - a temperature of 150 degrees Celsius, which the interior of Salyut 7 was not designed for. Both cosmonauts wore warm clothes and went inside Salyut Sen after opening all three hedges. They also had air quality testers which included carbon The quantity of monoxide was showing very high which was an indication that there was a fire here. Both the cosmonauts were having difficulty breathing because the circulation system of the salute was not working. The carbon dioxide present in their breath was making the environment inside even more dangerous, so they decided that only one cosmonaut would stay inside the Salute Sen at a time. There was a supply issue for both crews. They had only eight days' worth of food and water if they used even a little. If they did, they had only 12 days of supplies, but it could take more than 12 days to find out what was the problem with Salute 7 and repair it. Well, when troubleshooting started in the electrical system, it was found that The entire space station had shut down due to the failure of just one sensor. This sensor is installed in the batteries which protects them from overcharging. When it got damaged, it was not allowing the batteries to be charged and ultimately the batteries were completely exhausted. It got drained and the entire system shut down.
After replacing the sensor and changing the direction of the solar panels, surprisingly the Salute Sen came alive once again and it remained a part of the mission for the next 1 year. It was when the Soviet Union had also launched its largest space station Mir, after which there was no need for Salyut Sen, but despite this, it was decided to keep it in orbit only. The crew of Mir reached Salyut Sen through spacecraft. Also traveled and made a new world record by transferring from station to station. Soviets wanted to keep Salyut Sen in Majeed Space, and for this, it was sent to a higher orbit of 475 km, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, funding issues and Due to the second missile, attention were diverted from Salyut Sen and while reducing its orbit, one day it made uncontrolled reentry in the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated into pieces over South America, thus the end of the last Salyut space station of the Soviet Union. It is done.
