Today we’re expecting the crew from “Soyuz T-7.” During the day we did the final tidying up, pumped urine into the storage and disposal container, hung up new sleeping bags. In the evening we prepared a festive dinner, got carried away and nearly missed giving the command to begin rendezvous. Then I happened to glance at the clock and couldn’t believe it. I ask: “Tolya, what time do you have?” It turned out to be 8:45 PM, meaning in 2 minutes we had to activate program No. 4. We barely managed to turn it on in time — this program powers the instruments of the “Igla” radio-technical system, which provides mutual orientation of ship and station and measures the parameters of their relative motion.
The passive part of this system is installed on the station and works as a radio beacon, whose signal is sought in space by the active part installed on the “Soyuz T-7” transport ship. When the ship detects the beacon signal with its search antennas, it automatically turns its longitudinal axis, where the narrow-beam gyro-stabilized homing antenna is located, toward the station. When the station enters its field of view, the ship begins transmitting a return signal. The station, receiving it, also automatically turns its docking port toward the ship — on the side of either the orbital module or the intermediate chamber, preselected by ground command. When ship and station are aimed at each other with docking ports, the passive part of “Igla” switches to relay mode. From this point, the ship’s “Igla,” receiving the signal from the station, begins calculating relative motion parameters — range by signal phase delay, speed by Doppler shift — and, tracking the station’s lateral drift with the homing antenna, measures the angular rate of the line of sight, since during rendezvous there’s always lateral drift. In an airplane, lateral drift comes from wind; here it comes from the ship and station moving on non-coinciding orbits.
From this point, the on-board digital computing complex, using real-time data on the mutual orientation of ship and station and their motion parameters from “Igla,” begins correcting its trajectory forecast, which was previously calculated based on ballistic data from ground tracking measurements uploaded via the command radio link. The computing complex manages the rendezvous, firing orientation and center-of-mass translation engines, maintaining speed according to a defined control law based on range. The closer we approach the station, the lower the speed becomes, so that at the moment of contact it’s no less than 0.2 m/s — to guarantee capture by the docking mechanisms — and no more than 0.5 m/s for structural integrity. The rendezvous went smoothly. At about 5 km we saw the transport ship on a small TV screen used to monitor rendezvous. It looked like an airplane with solar panel wings, blinking lights, and antenna whiskers. From time to time, wedge-shaped flashes of gas dispersed from the ship in different planes — those were engines firing to kill lateral drift. We docked; the impact wasn’t hard, but somewhat lateral. As a result, we got a yaw rotation of 0.3 degrees per second.
The crew immediately began checking the docking seal integrity. After they filled the cavity between the docking ports with air, we established contact through tapping and voice. We agreed to help them speed up pressure equalization between ship and station by manually opening our pressure equalization valve so we could meet sooner. We opened the hatches. First to cross over to us was Lyosha Popov, then Sasha Serebrov floated in. We kissed each other. But Sveta was nowhere to be seen. We looked into the ship, and she was sitting in the descent module, combing her hair. We called her, and she floated over to us. Everyone hugged joyfully. We captured the reunion nicely on the film camera. After that, the guys floated around the station and were surprised that there were no smells and it was very clean and spacious. We presented Sveta with an Arabidopsis plant with delicate tiny flowers. And we said that this plant had for the first time completed its full development cycle from seed to seed. In this lies the beautiful future of humanity’s settling of space, and we were pleased to present them to the first woman on an orbital station.
The comm session ended; we invited them to the table, which we’d set up festively. We presented Sveta with a blue floral apron and said: “Even though you’re a pilot and cosmonaut, Sveta, for us you’re first and foremost a woman. So please be the hostess of the table.” She agreed. We had a good time. The crew passed us letters, newspapers, gifts. Around 4 in the morning we finished the gathering. I put Lyosha to bed on the treadmill, and Tolya set up Sveta on the wall on the port side near the floor, where there’s less draft. Sasha was placed on the ceiling between us, in Jean-Loup Chretien’s spot. After that I went to the orbital module to read the letters. The station was quiet; I had envelopes tucked inside my shirt, and slowly, hungrily, I read every line.
LETTER FROM THE PSYCHOLOGIST
Dear Elbruses!
Esteemed Valentin Vitalyevich, Anatoly Nikolayevich!
Your flight has now lasted over three months. We hear your tireless voices every day, less often we see you, but each time we’re glad of the meetings, though you may not suspect it.
Over this time we’ve learned to sense your mood. And not only we; many TsUP staff exchange impressions after the morning sessions:
“Well, how are they today?” “Seems all right.” “Great guys, no complaints!” “Normal, the guys are working!” And even the strict doctors break into smiles and temporarily forget about exercise. But there are cloudy days too: “The guys must be tired!” “They’re too serious today!” “How are they sleeping, eating? Seems like they’re losing weight…” I cite these remarks to illustrate that we think about you, rejoice and grieve with you, root for you! And how happy you’d be to see the care with which your families prepare for meetings with you. Dear, dear Lyusya and Lida — they hold themselves with dignity, as befits the wives of space djigits, and yet they worry… And the kids! You should see how they, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with concentration, rehearsing something to themselves, turn to their mothers:
“Can I tell daddy…” “And I’ve thought of something…” They’re wonderful — they understand everything and take your work very seriously. And what about the adults? So many worries, so much sincere care, something truly, deeply human that you can’t immediately find words for, accompanies the preparation for communication with you. They ask us in every detail about your life on board — about your health, mood, what you like, what might please you… And they always ask us to call and tell them about your impressions from the meeting… And all this with an excitement and involvement that you probably feel too.
Here on Earth, everything takes its course: days, nights, weeks… seasons. You left when the lilacs were blooming, and now the red rowan is ripening. I think that with your achievements in biological science, soon it’ll be possible to grow all kinds of plants on the station. And since that hasn’t happened yet, we decided to remind you of them — with earthly ones. Perhaps you’ll enjoy, glancing at the Earth, having the chance to admire nature, even through such a mediated path, by leafing through an album-herbarium.
And time, time, which is constantly in short supply, keeps running somewhere very fast. But the day is near when we’ll be able to see you on the Baikonur paths, shake your hands, and silently express our deep respect. All the best to you, dear ones!
LETTER FROM FELLOW COSMONAUTS
Dear Valya and Tolya, hello!
Glad to see you healthy and cheerful. Knowing you always like to learn something new, we’ll tell you about our life on Earth. Technical training is now conducted only by modern methods — on TV (if before we fought with sleep, now we’ve stopped).
We watched your visual-observation film about our “Mother Earth,” but unfortunately didn’t see ourselves anywhere in it, and we come in all sorts of forms… But we did see you in the station’s portholes in photographs taken by the “French” crew. You can even see tears flowing upward on your face — weightlessness! Sveta told us about your cowboy picture. She says what she liked most was the horse. On Saturday there was a Saturday volunteer workday at S. P. Korolev’s cottage. Four people showed up, but they fulfilled the quota for the whole corps (both in the field and at the table), for which two of them were awarded S. P. Korolev medals.
There was a big trip to City “F.” Life, as always, turned out to be a villainess: to each his own — some get calm, some get 4 on the Beaufort scale. Everything at our base is in order, but the physical training sessions are ongoing and the steam is light.
In the fall there were exercises in the form of a mountain crossing along the route Alma-Ata — Cholpon-Ata. Everyone went, even the women. Including O. G. Gazenko’s wife. Control, filming, and also the dropping of “especially important supplies,” including firewood, were carried out by the new exercises leader from a helicopter. Surprisingly, everything turned out fine — no casualties. From our group, the very best hikers participated, and only one made it to the end of the route — Nikolai Nikolayevich Rukavishnikov (though he was the only one from us who started it). And when he descended to the level of City “P,” he immediately turned 50, and we congratulated him — gave him an antique vessel in the form of a samovar filled with 5 liters of wonderful light Crimean wine. The birthday boy was very happy and pleased.
We won’t write any more — because there’s nothing to write! The rest you can see for yourself with the X-ray equipment.