Soyuz 9
| Mission Statistics |
| Mission Name: | Soyuz 9 |
| Call Sign: | Сокол (Sokol - "Falcon") |
| Number of Crew Members: | 2 |
| Launch: | June 1, 1970
19:00:00 UTC
Baikonur LC1 |
| Landing: | June 19, 1970
11:58:55 UTC
50° N, 72° E |
| Duration: | 17 days, 16 h, 58 min, 55 s |
| Number of Orbits: | 288 |
Soyuz 9 paved the way for the Salyut space station missions, investigating the
effects of long-term weightlessness on crew, and evaluating the work that the cosmonauts
could do in orbit, individually and as a team.
Commander Andrian Nikolayev and flight-engineer Vitali Sevastyanov spent eighteen days in space conducting various
physiological and biomedical experiments on themselves, but also investigating the social
implications of prolonged spaceflight. The cosmonauts spent time in two-way TV links with their
families, watched the World Cup football game, played chess with ground control, and voted
in a Soviet election. The mission set a new space endurance record and marked a shift in
emphasis away from spacefarers merely being able to exist in space for the duration of a long
mission (such as the Apollo flights to the moon) and being able to actually live in space.
On their return to Earth, the crew was found to have weakened considerably, and it took some
ten days for them to regain their strength. In orbit, they had sacrificed some of their
exercise time for the sake of carrying out their scientific work, and their bodies' reactions to
the prolonged weightlessness emphasised the importance of maintaining regular exercise.
Crew
Mission Parameters
- Mass: 6590 kg
- Perigee: 176 km
- Apogee: 227 km
- Inclination: 51.6°
- Period: 88.5 min
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