Cosmonauts Revived 20-Tonne Salyut 7 After First Manual Docking With Dead Station
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 18
Cosmonauts Revived 20-Tonne Salyut 7 After First Manual Docking With Dead Station
2 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 18
Summary
Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Viktor Savinykh restored power to Salyut 7 after manually docking with the silent station on 8 June 1985 and reviving key systems within about 10 days.
A 11 February current surge had knocked out both transmitters and receivers, leaving the vacant station unable to hold Sun-pointing attitude; its batteries drained, heat failed and the interior fell to about minus 20C.
Soyuz T-13 had to close in entirely by hand because Salyut 7 could not communicate or stabilize itself; Dzhanibekov matched the station's slow rotation and achieved the first docking with a dead spacecraft.
Inside, the crew found frost-coated walls, frozen water and no working power, then improvised cables from the batteries to the solar panels and used Soyuz to turn the arrays back toward the Sun.
The recovery took weeks beyond the initial restart—water tanks thawed only near end-June and normal humidity returned in late July—and remains a benchmark for in-orbit repair of crippled spacecraft.