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More Details for 1976-06-22

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Second successful flight of the Almaz manned military space station. It had taken only 60 days and 1450 man-hours to prepare Almaz 0101-2 for flight, using the services of 368 officers and 337 non-commissioned officers. The tracking ships Academician Sergei Korolev and Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin were stationed in the Atlantic and Caribean to provide communications when out of tracking range of the USSR. Salyut 5 operated for 409 days, during which the crews of Soyuz 22 and 24 visited the station. Soyuz 23 was to have docked but its long-distance rendezvous system failed. Soyuz 25 was planned, but the mission would have been incomplete due to low orientation fuel on Salyut 5, so it was cancelled.

During the flight of Salyut 5 a 'parallel crew' was aboard a duplicate station on the ground. They conducted the same operations in support of over 300 astrophysical, geophysical, technological, and medical/biological experiments. Astrophysics studies included an infrared telescope-spectrometer in the 2-15 micrometer range which also obtained solar spectra. Earth resources studies were conducted as well as Kristall, Potok, Diffuziya, Sfera, and Reatsiya technology experiments. Presumably Salyut 5 was equipped with a SAR side-looking radar for reconnaissance of land and sea targets even through cloud cover.

The film capsule was ejected 22 February 1977 (and sold at Sotheby's, New York, on December 11, 1993!). The station was deorbited on 8 August 1977. In addition to the human crew two Russian tortoises (Testudo horsfieldi) and Zebrafish (Danio rerio) were flown.

The results of the Salyut 3 and 5 flights showed that manned reconnaissance was not worth the expense. There was minimal time to operate the equipment after the crew took the necessary time for maintenance of station housekeeping and environmental control systems. The experiments themselves showed good results and especially the value of reconnaissance of the same location in many different spectral bands and parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Maneuver Summary:
208km X 233km orbit to 213km X 245km orbit. Delta V: 4 m/s
212km X 243km orbit to 215km X 257km orbit. Delta V: 4 m/s
213km X 254km orbit to 264km X 274km orbit. Delta V: 19 m/s
250km X 256km orbit to 254km X 272km orbit. Delta V: 5 m/s
226km X 237km orbit to 231km X 259km orbit. Delta V: 7 m/s
230km X 257km orbit to 257km X 260km orbit. Delta V: 7 m/s
254km X 254km orbit to 254km X 260km orbit. Delta V: 1 m/s
249km X 251km orbit to 249km X 253km orbit. Delta V: 1 m/s
248km X 253km orbit to 248km X 256km orbit. Delta V: 1 m/s
246km X 255km orbit to 253km X 274km orbit. Delta V: 7 m/s
240km X 257km orbit to 254km X 269km orbit. Delta V: 7 m/s
254km X 269km orbit to 257km X 266km orbit. Delta V: 1 m/s
182km X 185km orbit to 90km X 182km orbit. Delta V: 27 m/s
Total Delta V: 64/91 m/s.
Officially: Further testing of station design, on-board systems and equipment; conduct of scientific and technical research and experiments in outer space. Further testing of station design, on-board systems and equipment; conduct of scientific and technical research and experiments in outer space.