Home in orbit

Abstract

When Georgiy Dobrovolskiy, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev were woken up at 3 a.m. on Sunday, 6 June 1971, it was still dark at the Baykonur cosmodrome. They briefly exercised, shaved, had a light breakfast — their last meal on Earth — and then the final medical checks. An hour later, after brief reports of the status of the rocket and Soyuz 11 spacecraft, the State Commission gave the ‘green light’ for the launch, and the rocket was fuelled. In contrast to previous missions, this time there were no backups to ride with the crew to the pad. However, they were accompanied on the bus by the Soyuz 10 cosmonauts and some of the officials from the TsKBEM and the TsPK. Just before 5 a.m. with dawn breaking, the bus drew up to the pad, where members of the State Commission, designers. engineers, technicians, military officers, pad workers, TV crews and reporters were waiting.