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The Soyuz-33 was launched on April 10, 1979 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
by Soyuz rocket into a 194 x 261 kilometre orbit . It was supposed
to dock with a Salyut-6 station and the mission was to last slightly
more than 7 days. The flight had a crew of two: the Commander was
experienced Russian cosmonaut Nikolay Rukavishnikov; the Cosmonaut-Researcher
was Georgy Ivanov from Lovech, the first Bulgarian Cosmonaut. The
original family name of Ivanov was Zhopov, but was changed at Soviet
President Breznev's suggestion a few days before his arrival in the
Soviet Union for training . Ivanov got the ride of a lifetime when
the craft’s propulsion system developed a leak and shut down. The
commander fired Soyuz 33's back-up retro-rocket manually to avoid
being stranded in space.
Interestingly, Soyuz-33 landed on April 12 (celebrated as "Day
of Cosmonautics" in honor of Gagarin's mission day). The mission
duration was 1 day, 23 hours, 1 minute and 6 sec. The capsule landed
180 kilometers farther than the normal standard landing region, 320
kilometres south-east of Dzhezhkazgan. |
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| The Bulgarian Museum of Aviation is grateful to the Russian Space
Agency for enriching our collection and providing this historic capsule
to us and our visitors. |
Four kilometers from Salyut 6, its main engine shut down during
the final docking run. At the same time, Salyut 6 cosmonauts Lyakhov
and Ryumin observed a glow from Soyuz 33 engine compartment. The Soyuz
33 had a burn out. |
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