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Gagarin's flight

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Vostok project

Voskhod flight plan

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Cabin

Above: Konstantin Feoktistov in the cabin of the Vostok spacecraft.

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Flight program

On August 13, 1964, Leonid Smirnov and his associates wrote to the Central Committee that preparation for the first Voskhod mission had entered its final phase. Officials reported the following flight schedule:

August, September -- Launch of one or two unmanned vehicles with dummies onboard for three days of orbital tests; It was recommended to announce the missions as Kosmos;
September-October -- Launch with three cosmonauts onboard for a one-day flight. As before, the public announcement about the mission would be made after the spacecraft reached orbit.

The spacecraft would be inserted into a 180 by 400-kilometer orbit with an inclination 65 degrees toward the Equator. (509)

During the mission, the crew was assigned a number of experiments, including the study of fluid behavior in weightlessness, star-tracking tests, photo and video documentation. The fluid-dynamics experiment promised to give engineers clues about the behavior of propellant in the tanks of rockets, which had to fire their engines in the weightlessness of space. (196)

A battery of medical tests was assigned to a doctor within a crew.

With three crew members onboard, it was decided to try a multi-shift workday, with one of the cosmonauts always on duty in the orbiting capsule. (84)

Launch and landing windows

The liftoff of Voskhod was scheduled for 10:00 Moscow Time with a 30-second launch window. The landing was scheduled on the Soviet territory with a braking maneuver initiated by an automated system after 17 revolutions around the Earth. The crew also had backup time windows for a braking maneuver which could be initiated automatically with the help of solar orientation during the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th orbit on each day, for the exception of the first orbit on the launch day.

The crew could also fire the main braking engine, TDU, after orienting the spacecraft manually from the 1st to 7th orbit of each day, for the exception of first two orbits on the launch day. Had the TDU failed, the crew could activate a pair of backup "Braking powder reactive engines", TPRDs, installed on the front section of the spacecraft. To place the spacecraft into correct attitude for engine firing, the crew would use the Vzor navigation window or data from experimental ion sensors. Reentry opportunities for this mode were available during 18th, 33rd, 48th and 49th orbits of the mission. Even if none of the backup deorbiting modes would be needed, the flight program called for the crew to practice orienting their spacecraft for landing using the Vzor window and ion sensors but without firing either PDU or TPRD engines. (84)

The formal flight program reserved a possibility of extending the flight by one or by two days with the approval of the State Commission on the ground.

Next chapter: Crew of the first Voskhod spacecraft

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Page author: Anatoly Zak; Last update: October 27, 2014

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crew

Voskhod crew inside its capsule.