SZALJUT

(Szaljut = Üdvözlet)

It was 25 years ago on 29 September 1977 when the Solut-6 was set from Baikonur -it was planned for longer lifetime and so called second-generation space station. It has opened the possibility in the history of the space station that people are able to live and work in the space for longer time than six years ago.

The soviet civil spacestation prepared with its first Souz spaceships programmes at the end of 1960 and at the beginning of the 71-s.They launched the SOUZ-4 and 5 spaceships on 14 and 15 January 1969. Their task was a space rendezvous that they did not carry out before.The two spaceships connected with each other and they were flying during 4 hours 33 minutes together. As the dock-system was unable to ensure the inside changing from the Souz-5 so the two astronauts Hrunor and Jeliseiev changed for the Souz-4 in the space.

In 1970 19.April the Souz-10should have delivered the first staff but the connection did not realized and they could not changed for the Solut.Finally the Souz-11 carried the first astronauts to the space station.Dobrovolski,Volkov, Pacajev did scientific work on the Solut-1.During their backwayto the Earth one of the pressure equalization valve was opened earlierand the air was missed from the cabin so the three astronauts died. Because of their serious accident they delayed two years meanwhile they had to replan the Souz spaceship.

In July 1972 and in May 1973 they launched Solut spacestations but both were unsuccesful. The first succesful civil spacestation was the Solut-4. In1975 they launched more four Souz spaceships to the space station.

The astronauts of the Souz-18worked 62 days at the Solut-4.They carried out researches in the atmosphere , astronomical, technical, sun-observations,medical-biology. The experiences and the results of this researches helped them to modify the Solut space stations and their research programmes.

With the progress of the freight spaceship they could increase the spending time at the space station and also the lifetime of the station.They changed the timetable of the crew as well : the so called permanentcrew worked during a certain period and weekly arrived some new astronauts to work with them. The changing of the permanent crew did not happen on the deck of the station that is why we cannot speak about permanent lived space station.

The Solut-6 begun the Interkosmos programme that was thr first international space flight. In this programme nine astronauts from the nine socialist countries carried out a one-week resarch work at the space station. The flight life priod of the crew was increased from three months to six months. Fourteen member of the crew worked and twelve Progress freight-spaceship linked to the SOLUT-6 altogether.The space station was set on the orbit on 29 September 1972. The Souz-25 could not connect to the SOLUT , so the first crew was carried by the Souz-26 in December 1977.

Bertalan Farkas a Hungarian astronaut went to the space station to do research work on the deck. Many Hungarian instruments were used for the research work.

The Hungarian astronaut was selected in May 1977 in Kecskemét in the Institute of Flight-Medical Center. The results of the medical examination four astronauts were selected and two of them, Bertalan Farkas and Bela Magyari went on training to the GagarinCosmonaut training Center and worked with Russian collagues. The other two Laszlo Elek and Imre Buckó stayed in Hungary as reserved astronauts.

Finally two years later on 26 May 1980 Bertalan Farkas was launched to the space on the deck of Souz-36 the first and the only Hungarian astronaut.

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