Skvortsov Credit: Yves Dejardin Collection - Yves Dejardin Collection |
Status: Inactive; Active 1965-1968. Born: 1942-06-08. Spaceflights: 2 . Total time in space: 345.27 days. Birth Place: Tambov, Tambov.
Graduated from Higher Military Pilot School, Armavir, 1964 Cosmonaut training November 1965 - December 1967. Left cosmonaut group for medical reasons. Pilot in Soviet Air Forces and Deputy Commander, 153rd. Squadron, Moscow Military Area. He later lived in Odessa. Father of cosmonaut Aleksandr Skvortsov, Jr.
Although Kamanin desired 40 new cosmonaut-trainees, in the end only 17 were selected. They were:
Training of the new cosmonaut cadre is reviewed. English language courses are proving to be a particular problem. There have been some potential washouts - Sharafutdinov has done poorly in astronomy, Shcheglov suffered an injury at the beach, Skvortsov damaged his landing gear on a MiG-21 flight.
At 15:00 a major review is conducted, with Komarov, Khrunov, Gorbatko, Kamanin, and other VVS officer meeting with OKB-1 leaders Mishin, Tsybin, Severin, Alekseyev, Anokhin, and other engineers. Film is shown of the difficulties in the zero-G aircraft of cosmonauts attempting to exit from the 660 mm diameter hatch. In four sets of ten attempts, the cosmonaut was only to get out of the hatch half the time, and then only with acrobatic contortions - the inflated suit has a diameter of 650 mm, only 10 mm less than the hatch. Mishin finally concedes the point. But installation of the hatch in Soyuz s/n 3 and 4 is not possible - the spacecraft are essentially complete, and to add the hatch would delay their flight 6 to 8 months. Then Mishin makes the astounding assertion that Gorbatko and Khrunov are not adequately trained to be engineer-cosmonauts, and without this he will not allow them into space. He suggests OKB-1 engineers Anokhin and Yeliseyev instead. After outraged response, Severin finally sinks this suggestion by pointing out that no space suit has been prepared for Anokhin, and that it will take two to three months to make one. Kamanin is astounded that Mishin has pushed Anokhin all the way up to Smirnov and the VPK without even knowing he could not possibly fly due to this restriction. It again points out their poor management. Finally Mishin agrees that spacecraft s/n 5 and 6 and on will have 720 mm hatches. The ECS for the suits for those missions will have to be changed from a backpack configuration, with the equipment rearranged around the waist of the cosmonaut. The crews for the flight will be an experienced VVS pilot cosmonaut as commander, and (Kamanin realizes he may have to concede) a VVS engineer as flight engineer cosmonaut. They will have to complete training by 1 October 1966.
The third planned rendezvous burn at 23:48 GMT was cancelled due to a software problem, leaving the spacecraft in a 297 x 333 km x 51.7 deg orbit. Rendezvous with the ISS was rescheduled to 27 March. It maneuvered to a 414 x 425 km orbit on 26 March. Docking with the ISS at the Poisk module was at 23:53 GMT on 27 March. On September 10 at 23:01 GMT Skvortsov, Artemev and Swanson undocked from the Poisk module in Soyuz TMA-12M. The deorbit burn at 01:30 GMT September 11 was followed by module separation at 01:58, atmosphere entry at 02:01, and landing in Kazakhstan at 02:23.
The airlock was depressurized at 13:40 GMT and the hatch opened at 14:02 GMT . At Artemev hand-launched the 1U cubesat Chasqui-1, a joint Peruvian-Russian project. The crew also worked with materials exposure experiments; installed the EXPOSE-R2 experient on Zvezda's URM-D-II boom, and on Poisk retrieved Panel 2 of the Vinoslivost experiment and swapped out the SKK-1-M2 cassette for the new SKK-2-M2; and installed the new BKDO experiment to study the effects of rocket thruster plumes impinging on the station. A Biorisk exposure canister was retrieved from Pirs. The astronauts went back inside to close the Pirs hatch at 19:13 GMT and repressurize the airlock at about 19:16 GMT.