Forgotten Flight "Eagle"

There are unpleasant things in cosmonautics. Probably the most unpleasant of them is the very uneven distribution of fame and honors for the work performed. The first person who has flown into space will be called by chance by people who have been interviewed right away, but they can’t name the third, or even the second. The crew of the Apollo 11 is remembered by many, but fewer people are able to name those who fly the Apollo -10 or -12. And their work was comparable in complexity and benefit. August 6 marks the 55th anniversary of the flight of German Titov to Vostok-2. It was a very interesting flight - the youngest cosmonaut, a record duration of 24 hours, the first shooting from orbit, the first dream, toilet and nausea in orbit. But this is much less known.

Cosmonaut

Four-year-old German Titov

German Stepanovich Titov was born on September 11, 1935 in the village of Verkhnee Zhilino of the Altai Territory. His father, a teacher of Russian language and literature, strongly loved Pushkin, and named his son in honor of Herman from The Queen of Spades. In 1953, Hermann was drafted into the army, graduated from the school of pilots (1955), the school of pilots (1957) and then served as a fighter pilot in the Leningrad Military District. In 1958 he got married. In 1960 he was selected to the first cosmonaut corps.
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Candidate in astronauts

April 12, 1961 was a doubler Gagarin



At the time of launching Vostok-2, Herman was 25 years and 11 months old. To this day (and, as I suspect, for many more years) Titov holds the record for the youngest cosmonaut.

Titov chose Eagle as a call sign. This laid its own tradition - if Gagarin was “Cedar”, then the cosmonauts of the Vostokov, after Titov, took bird callsigns.

Ship

Over the time elapsed since the flight of Gagarin, on the ship "Vostok" spent many improvements. First of all, they corrected what they didn’t manage to do well for the flight of Gagarin, and that could cause problems during a long flight. For example, the diaries of General Kamanin mention problems with an air dryer that could fail on the fourth day of flight. After the correction of the Vostok systems, it could be guaranteed to be in orbit for at least a week. In addition, the ship was improved - the engineers were ashamed of the poor quality of the television signal, but the TV equipment of Vostok was seriously upgraded for the flight of Titov. Improved communication, it has become safer and more convenient to use. The telemetry “Tral” was supplemented with the “Signal” equipment, which transmitted the most important vital signs of the cosmonaut and served for direction finding.

Flight plan

The main subject of controversy in terms of the flight Titov was its duration. Doctors and general in cosmonauts, General Kamanin, were in favor of a flight of 3 turns, one turn of Gagarin still could not guarantee the absence of some unpleasant cosmic factors. Engineers with Korolev were for the daily flight. First of all, the Vostok of the Titov 3KA No. 4 was the only remaining ship, and the new ones had not yet been built. Secondly, in the normal mode, the flight and landing was in charge of the automatics, the astronaut’s indisposition could not prevent it. And thirdly, the landing on 2-7 turns had engineering difficulties - the solar sensor for these turns gave a big mistake. From the end of April, Kamanin went on a trip to the countries of the world with Gagarin, therefore he could not participate in the dispute, and as a result, the engineers won - Titov was supposed to fly for one day. Do not think that he would be bored and lazy in such a flight. The developer of each ship system wanted the astronaut to check his brainchild in flight. Hermann was given the Konvas camera for shooting views through portholes.


That camera

In addition, he had to eat, drink, sleep, do physical exercises and walk around a small need, and for the first time, everything except food and drink!

Flight

Three days before Titov’s flight to Baikonur, the R-9 rocket exploded during a test launch, and Hermann’s nerves were probably additionally tested for strength by the spectacle of the launch complex ruined by the explosion.

But everything went well. At 9 o'clock in the morning in Moscow, the spacecraft Vostok-2 with cosmonaut German Titov successfully launched and entered the calculated orbit. An hour later, Titov turned on the manual orientation and for the first time in history began to turn the ship in orbit. "Vostok" did not know how to change the orbit, but could only turn in space. And according to Titov's reviews, the manual control was done well, it was convenient to manage.


The device "Vzor" to build a manual landing orientation

At the third orbit, the astronaut had lunch with mashed potatoes, meat and liver pate, bread, and washed down with black currant juice. While flying over the territory of the USSR, Titov kept a VHF link, and outside the radio visibility zone he made contact in the KV-band twice per hour.

After six hours of flight (this is about 4 turns), the astronaut reported: "The feeling of weightlessness is excellent." But he was cunning - Hermann mutilo. We now know that about half of the selected and trained astronauts experience this. Titov even managed to find the right algorithm to combat nausea - calm, collected movements and a minimum of head movements. It was impossible not to move at all - the tasks of photographing and filming the Earth required movements.


One of the photos autographed by Titov

On the sixth stage, Hermann went for a small need for a space toilet and did physical exercises.

On the seventh orbit, Titov re-enabled the manual orientation and controlled the position of the ship. After the seventh orbit, the ship went to the so-called "deaf turns" and until two in the morning Herman was allowed to sleep. On the “deaf turns,” communication with the ship is a matter of luck, so on Earth they became very worried when at two o'clock in the morning Titov did not respond to calls - if something happened, the Earth could not recognize it. But Herman tritely overslept. Here is what he himself writes about this story:

There was no alarm clock on the ship, and the “duty shift” of my brain, which was set up to wake up at 2 am, worked a little earlier. I woke up 15 minutes before the appointed time. Decided to be punctual and take a nap these 15 minutes. But when I opened my eyes a second time, I saw that the hand indicated 2 hours and 35 minutes! Slept through! Here is a nuisance! After all, on Earth, they may think about some kind of trouble, they may get seriously worried ... Two minutes went to completely get rid of sleep, and I started to work. ”

On the seventeenth orbit, as planned, the automatic landing system was activated. Braking has passed regularly, the only technical problem has arisen with the separation of compartments. Due to the incorrect sequence of operation of the pironoj, the cable mast did not separate, and the aggregate compartment hung on it.



But for the "East" it was not a dangerous accident - the cable mast was burned off, and the descent vehicle normally braked in dense layers of the atmosphere. At an altitude of 7 km, Titov catapulted the automatics, and here he was again “lucky” - he landed quite close to the railway embankment along which the train was going. When analyzing this incident, someone even offered to continue coordinating the launches of astronauts with the Ministry of Communications. But a simpler decision was made. From the region of the Volga region (Samara, Saratov region) transfer the landing site to the steppes of the Kazakh SSR.


Titov shortly after landing

The flight lasted 25 hours and minutes, Herman made 17 orbits around the Earth and flew 703,000 km.

After the flight

Now the official report looks a bit funny:





Due to irrational secrecy, the fact that a separate landing by parachute is regular for the Vostok is hidden. Also, you will not find anything here about Titov's nausea. But he had the courage and honesty to tell about it in a closed post-flight meeting, so that this experience was not wasted. In general, the flight was a huge success - it was clearly proved that you can spend hours in space and work successfully.

The footage shot by Titov, as well as a noticeable improvement in the quality of the TV signal, can be seen in the Titov films.





The flight of the "East-2" was the only Titov in the career. In the cosmonaut corps, Herman headed the 4th department of the Cosmonaut Training Center, which prepared pilots for the Spiral aerospace system. She never flew into space, so another chance for a flight to Titov, alas, did not fall out.