User:Mons1098/Georgy Grechko

Soyuz-Salyut Missions
Georgy Grechko’s first mission to space began during the winter of 1974, when he and fellow Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Gubarev were cremen of the Soyuz 17-Salyut 4 mission. The Soyuz 17 rocket launched on December 26th and successfully docked with the Salyut 4 Space Station on January 12th of 1975. This successful docking marked only the second complete success in five Soyuz-Salyut undertakings. The cosmonauts spent the remainder of their mission aboard the three room, 20 ton station. During their time aboard the Salyut 4 space station, Grechko and Gubarev conducted a wide range of studies that included infrared temperature scans of earth’s upper atmosphere, stellar observations and X-ray studies of the sun. In order to maintain fitness in weightlessness, Grechko spent up to two hours a day exercising on a bicycle and treadmill, as well as experimenting with wearing negative pressure suits. Grechko and Gubarev spent a total of 30 days in orbit, which set the Soviet record at the time, before returning safely on February 9th.

In December of 1977, Georgy Grechko returned to space with Yuri Romanenko during the Soyuz 26-Salyut 6 mission. The crew boarded the Soviet Salyut 6 Space Station, where they would stay long enough to eclipse the 84-day record set in 1974 by US Skylab astronauts Gerald Carr, William Pogue, and Edward Gibson. In January of 1978, Grechko and Romanenko were joined by fellow cosmonauts Vladimir Dihabinbeko and Oleg Makarov, who linked their Soyuz 27 craft with the Salyut 6 Space Station and spent five days aboard the station along with Grechko and Romanenko, before returning to earth in Soyuz 26 craft. This event marked the first double docking and first double crew occupancy of a space station. On March 4th, Grechko and Romanenko were joined by a different Soviet crew, consisting of Aleksei Gubarev (Grechko’s partner from his previous mission) and Czechoslavakian Vladimir Raemk, the first non-Russian cosmonaut.

The crew members of the Salyut 6 Space Station became the first men to carry out a systematic visual-instrumental observation of the earth. Their extended stay is what allowed the crew to pull off such an observation, as it takes two to three weeks for human eyesight to adapt to conditions in orbit. After several weeks in orbit, the members of the Salyut 6 crew were able to examine the finer details of the landscape, which included the traces left on the water surface by typhoons, enormous solitary waves that were over 100 kilometers long, and some of the characteristic features of the ocean floor. On March 15th, after spending a record-setting total of 96 days in orbit, Grechko and Romanenko finally left the Salyut 6 Space Station and returned to earth aboard the Soyuz 27 spacecraft. After spending such an extended period of time in orbit, the crew began an expanded exercise routine a week prior to departure that was intended to minimize the effects of the return to normal gravity. Despite this training, both Grechko and Romanenko struggled to complete easy tasks shortly following their return, such as turning a radio dial or lifting a cup of tea. Fortunately, neither cosmonaut reported any serious readjustment issues.