Jul 15 1983
From The Space Library
July 15-17: Reports from Tass on the flight of the Salyut 7-Soyuz T-9-Cosmos 1443 complex included "an unpleasant surprise” when a micrometeorite struck one of the windows with quite a loud crack, leaving a four-millimeter at diameter crater on the pane. "Luckily," the report added, "the windows have double panes, each 14mm thick. That is why nothing terrible has happened " Earth was passing through a meteorite shower, and Valery Ryumin had noted during his space walk that the skin of Salyut 6 had been riddled with small craters.
The incident had "amazingly coincided" with a preplanned exercise in "urgent escape from the station." Journalists "could not help asking" how long it would take for the crew to abandon station. Deputy flight director Victor Blagov said that the "minimum required time is 15 minutes, but we consider 90 minutes-that is, one orbit-to be standard time" during which the crew could take all steps needed for an emergency mothballing of the station and enter the return module. The cosmonauts could "spend several days [there] in absolute safety," Blagov added, but if necessary they could "splash down in the reentry vehicle in the ocean, or touch down in one of the reserve landing ranges in the USA, France, and other countries. There is an international convention on that score" (FBIS, Tass in English, July 15, 22, 27/83)
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