Sep 5 1984
From The Space Library
Soviet cosmonauts Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Solovyev, and Oleg Atkov aboard Salyut 7 equaled the record of 211 days in space, set by cosmonauts Anatoliy Berezovoy and Valentin Lebedev in December 1982. The increasingly long flights, coupled with Western intelligence reports that the Soviets were experimenting with rockets capable of lifting heavy payloads into orbit, indicated that the country was moving toward a goal of establishing a permanent, manned space station. Soviet reports said that the flight of Salyut 7 was proceeding normally and that there was no indication how long the flight would last.
During the flight the cosmonauts had spent 22 hours and 50 minutes outside the craft in 6 space walks, breaking the U.S. record for a single mission by 29 minutes. The three have been visited by six other cosmonauts, including an Indian and the first woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya, who during her space walk used a welding machine that space analysts said could be used for building large Space Stations.
The three cosmonauts had focused on the psychology of long periods in space as well as carried out important repairs outside the craft, demonstrating the crew's ability to maintain their spacecraft in an extended flight.
In a televised ceremony, Soviet leader Konstantin U. Chernenko honored the cosmonauts taking part in the flight and spoke of the great advances in knowledge and equipment since the first manned spaceflight by Yuri A. Gagarin, 23 years previously. "In the successes of cosmonautics we see a blend of the daring thinking of scientists, the remarkable skills of engineers, technicians and workers, and the great courage of cosmonauts," he said. (FBIS, Moscow Tass Intl Svc in Russian, Sept 6/84; FBIS, Moscow Tass in English, Sept 7/84; NY Times, Sept 6/84, B-10)
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