Soyuz programme

The Soyuz programme ( _ru. Союз, pronounced|saˈjus); English: Union) is a human spaceflight programme that was initiated by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. It was originally part of a Moon landing programme intended to put a Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon. Both the Soyuz spacecraft and the Soyuz launch vehicle are part of this programme, which is now the responsibility of the Russian Federal Space Agency.

oyuz rocket

The Soyuz launch vehicle (Western designation: A-2) is an expendable launch system designed and manufactured by the Korolev Design Bureau in Samara, Russia. As well as being used as the launcher for the manned Soyuz spacecraft, as part of the Soyuz programme, it is now used to launch unmanned Progress supply spacecraft to the International Space Station and commercial launches marketed and operated by TsSKB-Progress and the Starsem company. There were 11 Soyuz launches in 2001 and 9 in 2002. Currently Soyuz vehicles are launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwest Russia. Starting 2008 Soyuz launch vehicles will also be launched from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana. Soyuz-U rockets are fueled with kerosene, but the Soyuz-U2 rocket used a variant called Syntin.

oyuz spacecraft

The basic Soyuz spacecraft design was the basis for many projects, many of which never came to light. Its earliest form was intended to travel to the moon without employing a huge booster like the Saturn V or the Soviet N-1 by repeatedly docking with upper stages that had been put in orbit using the same rocket as the Soyuz. This and the initial civilian designs were done under the Soviet Chief Designer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, who did not live to see the craft take flight. Several military derivatives actually took precedence in the Soviet design process, though they never came to pass.

A Soyuz spacecraft consists of three parts (from front to back):
*a spheroid orbital module
*a small aerodynamic reentry module
*a cylindrical service module with solar panels attached

There are several variants of the Soyuz spacecraft, including:
* Soyuz A 7K-9K-11K circumlunar complex proposal(1963)
* Soyuz 7K-OK (1967-1971)
** Soyuz 7K-L1 Zond (1967-1970)
** Soyuz 7K-L3 LOK
** Soyuz 7K-OKS (1971)
*** Soyuz 7K-T or "ferry" (1973-1981)
*** Soyuz 7K-TM (1975-1976)
* Military Soyuz (7K-P, 7K-PPK, R, 7K-VI Zvezda, and OIS)
* Soyuz-T (1976-1986)
* Soyuz-TM (1986-2003)
* Soyuz-TMA (2003-.... )
*Soyuz-TMAT (2009/.... )
*Soyuz-ACTS (2012/....)

Derivatives

The Zond spacecraft was another derivative, designed to take a crew traveling in a figure-eight orbit around the Earth and the moon but never achieving the degree of safety or political need to be used for such.

Finally, the Progress series of unmanned cargo ships for the Salyut and Mir space laboratories used the automatic navigation and docking mechanism (but not the re-entry capsule) of Soyuz.

As of 2007, Soyuz derivatives provide Russia's human spaceflight capability and are used to ferry personnel and supplies to and from the International Space Station.

While not a direct derivative, the Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft follows the basic template originally pioneered by Soyuz.

Gallery

oyuz manned flights

: "See List of Soviet and Russian manned space missions"

oyuz unmanned flights

ee also

*Shenzhou, a Chinese spacecraft influenced by Soyuz
*Space Shuttle
*Buran (spacecraft)
*Space disaster