45 years since start of crew “Soyuz-22”

45 years ago, September 15, 1976, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the vehicle “Soyuz-22” manned spacecraft was launched crew of two astronauts: commander Valery Bykovsky and flight engineer Vladimir Aksyonov

This was the first flight under the program “Intercosmos”. The crew had to experience the camera MKF-6, which was developed by the Soviet and German scientists. The camera was made in the GDR in the company “Carl Zeiss”. ICF-6 model represented fotoustanovku of six separate apparatuses. Multispectral space camera provides synchronous recording simultaneously in the six areas of the visible and infrared spectral range with a resolution of about 15 meters. Experiment, dubbed the “Rainbow”, the astronauts engaged in the second through the seventh day of their flight. Able to do about 14,000 high-quality images.

“In the treatment of one of the frames capture the moon suddenly it turned out that in the frame hit and part of Earth’s horizon with the Earth’s atmosphere, illuminated from behind by the setting sun. The picture is unique and colorful. The whole atmosphere of the Earth throughout its height appeared in the form of the iris , spread out on all the colors of the rainbow “- writes in his book Vladimir Aksenov

The astronauts worked sixteen hours a day, the work demanded of them a great assembly. There were also various types of failures.

“Problems have arisen in the system ICF-6 with recharging cartridges – says Vladimir -. For each spectral band had its lens and its cassette when removing the cartridges for recharging in the mechanisms of attachment of several tapes were jamming, and one cassette no. starred. Only after repeated attempts and different influences failed recharge, and then get all the film footage. After the flight, and discuss the problems in the company “Carl Zeiss” cassette attachment mechanisms were changed. As it was “not follow the flights of such problems.

If the crew is not able to overcome the problem, evaluate the effectiveness of the system, even without a single spectral range would be impossible. The flight would have to be repeated. September 23, 1976 the crew of “Soyuz-22” landed safely. The experimental results were found to be successful. Decrypted and displayed the film was given a color image quality and richness of the information overcomes the most optimistic expectations.

/Media reports.