Cosmogram-9 1984Apr22JEO,Rt2 Box 350,Dickinson TX 77539SALYUT-7 PRESSES ON. Soyuz-11/10swap and Progress-2O resupply nowaccompl i shed, Ki z i m/Sol ovyov/Atkovcontinue their long voyage, headed•for what evidently is a recordstay in space (on SepO6 will sur-pass 211 day record).

T-ll launch Apr03/13O8T-ll linkup AprO4/1431T-1O land Aprll/lO5OT-ll swap sep 13/1O27P-2O launch Aprl5/O813P-20 linkup Apri7/O922

NEXT VISITS? The orbit precessesaround again in late May, andagain in late July. What kind ofnew visits can we expect? Can weever expect to see visiting crewsexceed a seven day overlap? Is itconceivable that the current crewcould be partially exchanged inthe coming months — say, Solovyovreturning to Earth, relieved by a•fresh FE such as Serebrov? And arethere any reports of other nation-alities preparing for guestvisits? Afghanis? The Finns saidno, thanks. Palestinian Arab?Nicaraguan? It is conceivable thatsome such nationalities could re-quire pre-launch total secrecy.Others, such as Ethiopian, orSyrian, or Greek, or Austrian, orNorth Korean, or Cambodian, wouldseem more likely to follow pastprecedent and be highly publicizedfor a year or more in advance.IS IT ALL OVER FOR STREKALOV? Nowthat Gennadiy has made his thirdorbital flight, will he be re-tired? Or will he be allowed toreturn to the Titov crew, evident-ly the Soyuz T-1O backups? Sincehe was a last—minute stand—in, hemay NOT have lost any standing inhis original crew. Rukavishnikovwas removed, say the Soviet pa-pers. because he came down with"the grippe", not because of somecongenital defect associated withage. Does this mean he may flyagain - a fourth orbital mission?

He has never been aboard a Salyut,remember! And will we see a visit-ing expedition with Berezovoy andGrechko in a year or two, whenGrechko is 53 or 54?PROTON PHOTO CONTROVERSY. Disputecontinues over whether Oct 83i.9.ytni.k really shows part of aProton launcher. C-gram non-sub-scribers appear divided on thisquestion, and I have not seen thephoto in question.To be continued.ZERO CONTACT WITH INDIAN NEWSMEN.My attempts to get in touch withIndian journalists, who are cer-tain to be having excellent accessto Soviet space information, havebeen complete failures. Not asingle response to any inquiry.HARVARD CONFERENCE ON SOVIETSPACE. On April 9 there was a one-day seminar on Soviet space act-ivities, sponsored by Harvard Uni-versity in Cambridge, Massachu-setts. I talked to several peoplewho went and they were mystifiedwhy such a superficial activitywas ever conceived. Anybody whoknew anything about Soviet spaceactivities reportedly would havelearned nothing there.KOSMOS-1443 CUTAWAY VIEW. Justafter remarking that no such viewsyet had been published, I learnedof one in the Feb '84 issue ofSoyi_etsk;Ly_ igyuz (Mar "84 issue ofthe English edition, Soviet -Uni_on) . It is a pretty good onealthough still no details of the* recoverable module'. I am having35mm slides made of both the coverart and the cutaway section.SOVIET MILITARY POWER - 1984, fromthe Pentagon, copiesartwork of new boostermore photographs fromrecovery, too. Says:year, theprograms for

C.P.Vick'sfamily. HasKosmos-1445"Since last

Soviet developmentalproviding a family of

new space launch vehicles andreusable spacecraft ... have comesharper into focus. Significantnew launch and support facilitiesat Tyuratam are nearing comple-tion. Some of these should be

ready this year or next to supportinitial testing of new launchvehicles. These vehicles include aspace transportation system (STS),that in many respects copies thedesign of the US space shuttle, anew heavy-li-ft launch vehiclebased on the core rockets o-f theSTS and a new medium-lift launchvehicle that is evidently designedfor high launch rates. The newspacecraft include a space shuttlethat differs from the US shuttleonly in the respect that the mainengines are not on the arbiter, asmall space plane ... and a spacetug that would be used in space tomove equipment and supplies fromone orbit to another. The Sovietshuttle could be first tested inthe mid-to-late 1980s... The newheavy-lift vehicle is estimated tohave the capability to place pay-loads weighing upwards of 33O,OOOpounds into low earth orbit."BAUDRY TO MOVE TO HOUSTON. BackupFrench guest-cosmonaut PatrickBaudry is the leading candidatefor a French guest mission aboardthe Space Shuttle next March. Hewill spend about six months inHouston and I expect to talk tohim at length. Any new questionsto ask? Any advice on topics toavoid, for any reasons?NEW CHINA LAUNCH SITE. China-14(Jan29:1225GMT) and China-15(AprOS:11206MT) were obviouslyfrom a new launch site south ofstandard space center. Hint: Chin-ese journalist at launch describedliftoff as occurring just pastsunset, in an area surrounded bymountains. Pan Hongxin, in a Bei-jing domestic service reportbroadcast AprlO/120O, began hisreport: "The sun is just settinghere, white clouds are scatteredabout in the sky, and the moun-tains around the site are bathedin the golden glitter cast by thesetting sun. The sky is gettingdark." For 31N, this would haveoccurred at 105E, in Sichuan (Sze-chwan) province somewhat east of

capital, Chengdu. But the launchsite would have to be somewhatsouth of there, since the China-14groundtrack made first northboundequator crossing at O32.55W, whichtraces back to a track acrossChina along roughly a line fromKueiyang in Kweichow (much furtherwest would not have been lateenough in the day to be consistentwith Pan's sunset description) tothe seaport of Shant*ou.CMy firstestimate of location, in a letterdated April 12, was based on mis-understanding an equator crossingas being one rev too early — Iretract my suggestion of "east ofChengdu in Sechuan"]. Americanvisitors in 1979 were shown LongMarch 3 booster factory nearShanghai. Stages could be bargedup the Yangtze River to the site.Chinese journalists also reportedthat the site was in "southwesternChina" and that the launch azimuthof the booster was "to the southeast". Launch sequence of China-15involved SUBORBITAL leg betweensecond stage cutoff and thirdstage (presumably cryogenic) igni-tion at first equator crossing.Apogee burn was made after threerevolutions in transfer orbit.Stage 3 was left in 12-hour trans-fer orbit with 31.1 inc. Note thatthis dusk launch time means thateyewitnesses would have had aspectacular apparition in the sky,as the booster contrails were litby the over—the—horizon sun to thewest. Potential witnesses were inHong Kong (2OO km south of track),Taiwan (between 2O and 40O kmnorth of track), and Luzon (300 kmsouth of track). Anybody hear ofany spectacular UFO reports fromthese regions on January 29 orApril 8?SOYUZ-1/2 CREW SENSATION. Rex Hallfound a "Gagarin Jubilee" (50thbirthday) article by Valeriy Kuba-sov, entitled "When Gagarin Was AStand-by". Rex had the Novostirelease (3NTOO3-84-84O2) in En-glish, and Joe Rowe sent me the

original (from Vechernaya Moskva,Mar 9, p. 3) which corrects sev-eral obvious typographical errorsin the Novosti translation CBUTthe Novosti version has severalpassages cut -from the VM version,which were not totally flatteringto Gagarin]. Anyway, Kufaasov re-lates that from Aug 1966 to Apr1967 ("1977" in Novosti) he, toge-ther with Viktor Gorbatko and YuriGagarin, were training "together"to fly the Soyuz. Gagarin was"headof our team". This of course is atodds with the official Sovietaccount that Gagarin was backup toKomarov, not to a three—man crew(and of course Kubasov and Gorbat-ko later were backups to Yeliseyevand Khrunov, during Soyuz—4/5).Yet I am willing to accept the newreport as accurate in describingthe backup crew of Soyuz-2 (primecrew Bykovskiy,Yeliseyev,Khrunov),and then ask, "Who was Komarov" sbackup on Soyuz—1? It has beensaid in Moscow that "Lazarevtrained together with Komarov forSoyuz—1". Moskovskaya Pravda (Mar3, p.3) wrote that during Soyuz-1,Gorbatko had already been trainingfor the flight "more than twoyears". Gagarin's widow's book"108 Minutes and a Life" recountsthat Gagarin was enraged to learnthat the "Soyuz—1" teams (primeand backup) had already been com-posed without him, and he had toraise hell with officials to gethimself added later. If the firstassignments had been made early in1965, they could therefore nothave included the four men as-signed to "Voskhod—3", to wit,Volynov, Shonin, Beregovoy, andShatalov. So, again the question,who was really Komarov's backup?And who did Gagarin bump from thecommand of the Soyuz-2 backupcrew? The available commanders, inthe order they later flew, are:Filipchenko, Nikolayev, Dobrovol-skiy, Lazarev, Popovich, Gubarev,Leonov ... and not to forget "Dmi-triy". So, new grounds for specu-

lation.DMITRIY AGAIN? Rex Hall sent meanother photograph, from a Ukrain-ian book on cosmonauts ("Voni bilipershimi" — in Russian, "Oni bylipervimi", "They were the firstones"). With Kamanin on the grasssit three pairs of cosmonauts:Shonin and Kubasov, Nikolayev andSevastyanov, and ??? and Volkov.The »???» is probably "Dmitriy"and he does in fact look like aman in some of our earlier mysteryphotos. Photo must have been takenpost Soyuz-4/5; the Nik/Sev crewwas known to have been in trainingin late 1968 because they clearlyshow up in Soviet Soyuz-3 film,"Man and Cosmos". Also in thatfilm, another two—man crew showedwhat many observers later identi-fied as Volkov and an unknownpilot ... Dmitriy again?April 5 ANOMALY. Another tidbit offallout from the Gagarin Jubileeis in the table at the back of theMar 1984 issue of Astronomy/Cosmo-nautics, on manned mission dura-tions. It lists the April 5, 1975Soyuz launch abort, and gives aflight time of "22 minutes". Thisseems reasonable — but I havenever seen this flight listed inprevious Soviet books tables, andit is not counted as a "spaceflight" in the running totals ofcosmonaut activity. It only tooknine years to release this item!OLD COSMONAUT. What is this reportthat as of 1982 there was a cosmo-naut "in his mid-fifties" beingtrained for a flight"?? Any newwhispers on this?FATE OF MILITARY COSMONAUTS. Du-ring Gagarin Jubilee, photosshowed Yuriy's mother with youngercosmonauts. Lyakhov, Romanenko,Klimuk had chestful of serviceribbons (six or seven rows, fourto a row!!)? Zudov and Sarafanovhad only two rows! So what havethey been doing since 1977? I lastheard of Rozhdestvenskiy as aCAPCOM for Salyut-6 in 1979, nomention since. Glazkov still ap-

pears in group photographs. Theway these men have been side-tracked is a mystery to me.SOVIET SPACE SUPPORT SHIPS. Duringcongressional testimony in mid-March, Rear Adm. John L. Butts,director of naval intelligence,disclosed that the construction o-fthe first of a "Marshall Nedelinclass" of space support ships wascompleted in 1983, and that "asecond apparent space event sup-port ship" also was launched; thelatter is more than S5O feet longand probably is nuclear powered,and this size "indicates that thenavy's role in the Soviet spaceprogram is increasing."WHEN DID EX-COSMONAUT 'VALENTINGRAMPS7 DIE? Shonin's book hadidentified a cosmonaut-candidatenamed Valentin who was too old(mid-3Os?) for the rigor of train-ing, and who dropped out of theprogram, to the sorrow of theyounger men who had nicknamed him"gramps" ("d'yed"). Soviet sourcesrecently wrote that he later tookpart in the training for the Vos-khod spacewalk, as a trainingofficial. My files also have thisbrief note: "Moscow,Oct 6,1970UPI. A Soviet test pilot who help-ed develop techniques for theworld's first spacewalk was killedwhile testing a new supersoniccatapult system, Pravda said to-day. Lt. Col. Valentin I. Danilo-vich ejected at high altitude froman aircraft flying at supersonicspeed, Pravda said..." Well, Val-entin was a common name (therewere three such candidates amongthe twenty first cosmonaut-selec-tees), but all the same it issuggest i ve.LIBRARY OF CONGRESS REPORT: A notefrom Marcia Smith of the Congres-sional Research Service, "We havecompleted Part 2 of the SOVIETSPACE PROGRAMS 1976-198O updatecovering manned programs and thespace life sciences, but have beenadvised that it will be manymonths before the government

printing office publishes it. Con-sequently we have assembled a CRSreport, "ATTAINING A PERMANENTMANNED PRESENCE IN SPACE" for useon an interim basis. The reportconsists of the executive summary,overview, and 1981-1983 supplementthat will appear in the GPO-pub-lished version." Let me add thathowever useful these reports are,the decision to omit time-of-dayfrom the launch summary table, andthe continued absence of an index,makes them much less valuable formy own particular needs. However,better than nothing by a long shot— thanks, CRSi! I'm not sure howto advise overseas friends toobtain copies, since in the USAone is supposed to ask one's con-gressman ."COSMONAUTS AND COSMONAUTICS" isan occasional publication in Aus-tralia (Number 1 came out in Feb1983). It looks terrific since itdraws upon a wide assortment ofSoviet sources, as well as my ownmaterial and BIS too! Subtitled"Soviet Space Activities: Review,Analysis, Speculation". Editor,Mark S. Hi liver, P.O. Box 229,Noble Park, Victoria, Australia.Mark asks (Febl2), "Is there any-thing to connect Ryumin with So-yuz-22? [not to my knowledge!" and"Have you seen anything that sug-gests Kovalyonok and Savinykh wereoriginally the Soyus T—4 backupcrew?CNo3".Anybody else can help?ASTRO INFO SERVICE has beenbrought to my attention by Mr.Anne van den Berg. Address, 26High Farm Road, Hurst Green, Hale-sowen. West Midlands B62 9RX,England. They reportedly publishMSF NEWS CManned Space Flight3 anda "SPACE EXPLORER'S LEXICON".Well-known names attached to theproject are David Shayler, RexHall, Neville Kidger, the samevdB, Curtis Peebles, Rick Mul-heirn, and vdB's associate Gerardvan de Haar. Good luck!

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