Spacecraft: overcome the earthly attraction

A spaceship, perhaps, is the most significant invention in the history of mankind. This is a real scientific and technological breakthrough, which allowed us to touch the secrets of the universe and to know the world beyond our native planet. Human civilization throughout its history had to go through a long and thorny path, full of mistakes and failures, the crown of which was overcoming earthly gravity and reaching the near-Earth space. The spacecraft became the symbol and the top of the technological genius of earthlings.

In addition, these aircraft are a kind of "vanity fair" of the most advanced and developed countries in the world. When creating any spaceship, all the best achievements of mankind are used - the most progressive developments, technologies and materials. The onboard equipment of such devices is always the most modern. Often, a spaceship is a testing ground for the latest discoveries and inventions.

Not so long ago, during the Cold War, space exploration was the arena of fierce competition, intense rivalry and even military-political confrontation between the two world superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union. And it is very symbolic that it was the Russian man who became the first conqueror of the space hostile to man. The significance of this event for the common history of mankind can not be overestimated.

For a very short period of time we are separated from the golden date that marked the beginning of a new era of human development - April 12, 1961, when the legendary spacecraft "Vostok", piloted by Yuri Gagarin, stormed near-Earth space. And although since then dozens of manned vehicles have visited the space, but it was the first flight that became the harbinger of a new era of mankind.

The spacecraft in the modern interpretation is an apparatus that is designed to deliver cosmonauts to outer space with their subsequent return back to Earth. Therefore, the technical requirements for spacecraft are much more stringent than for unmanned research vehicles. The main task of designers here is to create such flight conditions that will be safe for people.

The device, which is to be for several hours or days to become the home of astronauts, must have perfect systems not only for navigation and control, but also for life support. All this was fully inherent in the "East", which put into orbit a booster rocket with the same name. The full pre-launch mass of the complex was 287 tons.

This device consisted of two modules - a descending capsule and an instrument compartment. The first had a spherical streamlined shape, which significantly reduced the overloads during the passage of dense layers of the atmosphere. The hermetic hull of the ship was made of high-strength aluminum alloy. Inside the descending capsule, where the cosmonauts had to fly the entire flight, the designers placed only the most necessary life support and control systems. Everything else was in the instrument compartment. The internal volume of the descent module was 1.6 m ³ . There was also a thermoregulation system containing a liquid-air heat exchanger. "East" was the most perfect technique of its time. It concentrated all the advanced Soviet engineering and design ideas and used a lot of secret developments.

The Soyuz spacecraft, which replaced the legendary Vostok and the first multi-seat vehicle Voskhod, was even more technically advanced. He in all respects was much superior to similar aircrafts of the "probable enemy" (and in fact quite specific).

On ships of this type, for the first time, such complicated technical operations as maneuvering in the conditions of open space, manual docking, development of the newest system of controlled descents were carried out for the first time, the technology of cosmonauts exchange between ships and many other equally complex measures was first tested.

"Soyuz", which already had three autonomous modules-the instrument cluster, the orbital part and the traditional landing capsule, made an immense contribution to the exploration and conquest of space. With all the diversity and perfection of modern space technology, we should not forget that humanity is only at the beginning of a long journey to the stars.