Russian physician cosmonaut 1972-1995. Longest single space flight (437 days). 678 cumulative days in space. Civilian Physician, Institute of Medical Biological Problems. 2 spaceflights, 678.7 days in space. Flew to orbit on Soyuz TM-6 (1988), Soyuz TM-18.

The seven Project Mercury astronauts reported for duty. A tentative schedule of Mercury astronaut activities for the first months of training was issued. Actual training began the next day. Within 3 months the astronauts were acquainted with the various facets of the Mercury program. The first training week was as follows: Monday, April 27, check in; April 28, general briefing; April 29, spacecraft configuration and escape methods; April 30, support and restraint; May 1, operational concepts and procedures. These lectures were presented by specialists in the particular field of study. Besides the above, unscheduled activities involved 3 hours flying time and 4 hours of athletics.

Various gamma ray detectors were carried aboard Explorer XI on its orbital flight. These detectors found a directional flux of gamma radiation in space and thereby provided serious evidence against one formulation of the 'steady state' cosmological theory.

Titan II (N-8) was the second research and development missile and the first successful flight test vehicle to be launched from a silo at Vandenberg AFB. This was the first successful Titan II launch and flight after three consecutive failures, one (N-7) at Vandenberg and two (N-18 and N-21) at the Atlantic range. Research and development launch. Mk 6 re-entry vehicle.

The L1 inspection has not gone well. The cosmonauts find that the spacecraft has the same safety problems as Voskhod: no spacesuits, no reserve parachute for the spacecraft, no signal sent when the parachute deploys (the UHF beacon only begins emitting 10 seconds after landing). Supposedly this unsafe and poorly designed spacecraft is supposed to take cosmonauts around the moon by November 1967. Kamanin finds this incredible.

No 1 - August - Proton-2 (this may refer to the Proton / Block D full-mass mockup that was tested in October 1966 but then abandoned for safety reasons).
2-4: Flyby of the moon with the unpiloted version:
No 2 - October
No 3 - November
No 4 - December
No 5 - No 9: 7K-L1 flyby of the moon at intervals of one month with crew delivery by 7K-OK
No 10 - No 14: Direct flyby of the moon at one month intervals.

This indicates that podsadka was the baseline approach for early missions, for both safety and launch mass considerations. Only the last five missions would be direct flights. It was probably anticipated that by then the Proton booster would be reliable enough and that improvements to the Block D and the weight reduction on the L1 would make the single-launch approach feasible. (Mishin Diaries 1-266)

Ustinov convened the commission at noon. The work was to be completed by 15 May, and the final report issued by 25 May. The members of the commission would be Ustinov, Smirnov, Serbin, Afanasyev, the Chief Designers, and Gagarin. 22 members would work in seven subcommittees that would:

• Investigate design and test of the spacecraft structures
• Investigate design and test of the landing and parachute systems
• Investigate design and test of the orientation and guidance systems
• Study the performance of the tracking, communications, and flight ground control systems
• Investigate design and test of the launch system
• Analyse the contents of the Mir-3 flight data recorder, telemetry, and space-to-earth communications
• Review the design and as-built documentation for the spacecraft, subsystems, training program, flight plan, and the on-board flight log

ASPO Manager George M. Low explained to the Apollo Program Director the underlying causes of slips in CSM and LM delivery dates since establishment of contract dates during the fall of 1967. The general excuse, Low said, was that slips were the result of NASA-directed hardware changes. "This excuse is not valid." He recounted how NASA-imposed changes had been under strict control and only essential changes had been approved by the MSC Level II Configuration Control Board (CCB). Additional Details: here....

Nikolayev is to be commander of the first group, with Leonov as his deputy. Titov would command the second group, with Popovich as his deputy. But Kamanin doesn't consider any of them to be command officer material yet. The automobile accidents of Popovich, the mess that led to Matinchenko's dismissal, the bad performance of Belyayev in his duties as chief of staff of the VVS group at Baikonur - none of these men have any discipline!

James C. Fletcher was sworn in as NASA Administrator at a White House ceremony. Fletcher decided to push for Congressional approval of the stalled space shuttle program, but found that would only be forthcoming if the US Air Force agreed to participate. In order for that to happen, NASA would have to incorporate the USAF requirements for the shuttle that it had so far ignored (greater payload, higher cross-range). In another attempt to share the cost of the shuttle with other nations, previous NASA Administrator Thomas Paine had already tried to obtain international partners. But the only remnants of that effort were the Canadian robotic arm for the shuttle, and the European Space Agency Spacelab module. Neither represented a significant amount of the total program cost.

President Nixon had nominated Fletcher for the position on March 1, and the Senate had confirmed the nomination on March 11. George M. Low, NASA Deputy Administrator, had been Acting Administrator since the resignation of Paine on September 15, 1970.

Entry and landing were normal, completing a 265-hour 51-minute mission. The command module was viewed on television while dropping on the drogue parachutes, and continuous coverage was provided through crew recovery. Splashdown was at 2:45 p.m. EST (19:45 GMT) in mid-Pacific, 5 kilometers from the recovery ship U.S.S. Ticonderoga. All primary mission objectives had been achieved.

Entry and landing were normal, completing a 265-hour 51-minute mission. The command module was viewed on television while dropping on the drogue parachutes, and continuous coverage was provided through crew recovery. Splashdown was at 19:44 GMT in mid-Pacific, 5 kilometers from the recovery ship U.S.S. Ticonderoga. Additional Details: here....

Unmanned supply vessel for Salyut 6. Delivery of various cargoes to the Salyut-6 orbital station. Docked with Salyut 6 on 29 Apr 1980 08:09:19 GMT. Undocked on 20 May 1980 18:51:00 GMT. Destroyed in reentry on 22 May 1980 00:44:00 GMT. Total free-flight time 3.32 days. Total docked time 21.45 days.

Tracking stations downrange did not pick up the spacecraft. It was later determined that the rocket nose fairing failed to separate four minutes after launch. The extra mass caused the vehicle to reenter over the South Pacific on the first partial orbit. Space Imaging's Ikonos 1 was to have been the first commercial imaging satellite with a high a resolution camera.

International Space Station (ISS) flight controllers have resumed routine operations watching over systems and cycling onboard batteries, while awaiting word on the next available launch opportunity for Space Shuttle Atlantis. That decision is expected late today or early tomorrow. Additional Details: here....

The Italian Space Agency-provided Raffaello logistics module, loaded with 1,600 pounds of material to be returned to Earth, was tucked securely in Endeavour's payload bay at 3:58 p.m. Central time today as the International Space Station and shuttle flew high over the Pacific Ocean, north of Indonesia. Additional Details: here....

Communications satellite owned by the Turkmenistan National Space Agency and the Turkmen Ministry of Communications, which operated 26 Ku-band transponders. The GEO orbital slot was assigned to Monaco and its GEO telecom operator Space Systems International; Monaco had a further 12 Ku-band transponders on the satellite for the MonacoSat portion of the payload, operated by the SES company on its behalf. Stationed in geosynchronous orbit at 52.0 deg east.