Sharafutdinov
Sharafutdinov
Credit - Yves Dejardin Collection
Ansar Ilgamovich Sharafutdinov Russian Pilot Cosmonaut. Born 26 June 1939.

Personal: Male. Born in Chelyabinsk, Russia. Soviet Air Force Graduated from Kachinsk Military Pilot School, 1963 Soviet Air Force. Soviet Air Force.

Astronaut Career

Astronaut Group: Air Force Group 3 - 1965. Inactive Entered space service: 23 October 1965. Left space service: 5 January 1968. Cosmonaut training November 1965 - December 1967. Withdrawn from cosmonaut team for medical reasons.

Retired from active military duty in 1985. Later teacher at a Higher School.


Sharafutdinov Chronology

23 October 1965 - Cosmonaut selection. Although Kamanin desired 40 new cosmonaut-trainees, in the end only 17 were selected. They were:

  • Pilots: Voloshin, Sharafutdinov, Shcheglov, Kramarenko, Yakovlev, Petrushenko,Skvortsov, Fyodorov,Klimuk, Sarafanov, Zudov, Kizim
  • Engineers: Kolesnikov,Stepanov Eduard, Lisun, Rozhdestvensky, Khludeyev, Glazkov, Preobrazhensky
  • Navigator: Grishchenko
  • Physician: Degtyarov

28 October 1965 - Soviet Air Force Cosmonaut Training Group 3 selected..
26 July 1966 - Soyuz hatch problem. Flight: Soyuz 1, Soyuz 2A, Souyz 3A, Soyuz 4A. Training of the new cosmonaut cadre is reviewed. English language courses are proving to be a particular problem. There have been some potential washouts - Sharafutdinov has done poorly in astronomy, Shcheglov suffered an injury at the beach, Skvortsov damaged his landing gear on a MiG-21 flight.

At 15:00 a major review is conducted, with Komarov, Khrunov, Gorbatko, Kamanin, and other VVS officer meeting with OKB-1 leaders Mishin, Tsybin, Severin, Alekseyev, Anokhin, and other engineers. Film is shown of the difficulties in the zero-G aircraft of cosmonauts attempting to exit from the 660 mm diameter hatch. In four sets of ten attempts, the cosmonaut was only to get out of the hatch half the time, and then only with acrobatic contortions - the inflated suit has a diameter of 650 mm, only 10 mm less than the hatch. Mishin finally concedes the point. But installation of the hatch in Soyuz s/n 3 and 4 is not possible - the spacecraft are essentially complete, and to add the hatch would delay their flight 6 to 8 months. Then Mishin makes the astounding assertion that Gorbatko and Khrunov are not adequately trained to be engineer-cosmonauts, and without this he will not allow them into space. He suggests OKB-1 engineers Anokhin and Yeliseyev instead. After outraged response, Severin finally sinks this suggestion by pointing out that no space suit has been prepared for Anokhin, and that it will take two to three months to make one. Kamanin is astounded that Mishin has pushed Anokhin all the way up to Smirnov and the VPK without even knowing he could not possibly fly due to this restriction. It again points out their poor management. Finally Mishin agrees that spacecraft s/n 5 and 6 and on will have 720 mm hatches. The ECS for the suits for those missions will have to be changed from a backpack configuration, with the equipment rearranged around the waist of the cosmonaut. The crews for the flight will be an experienced VVS pilot cosmonaut as commander, and (Kamanin realizes he may have to concede) a VVS engineer as flight engineer cosmonaut. They will have to complete training by 1 October 1966.


25 December 1967 - 1965 Air Force Group cosmonaut trainees are examined.. Of the 18, 13 scored a '5', four scored '4', and one '3'. Belousov, Grishchenko, Skvortsov, Sharafutdinov, and Voloshin - the low scorers - are all to be dismissed from the cosmonaut corps.

Bibliography and Further Reading
  • Becker, Joachim, http://www.spacefacts.de/, "Space Facts Web Site", . Joachim Becker's outstanding collection of facts and photos of astronauts and cosmonauts. Accessed at: http://www.spacefacts.de/.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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