September-December 1980:milestones

April 1980

27 Unmanned cargo craft Progress 9 is launched from Baikonur at 0924 hrs Moscow time; docks with Salyut 6 aft airlock 29 April; undocks 20 May.

May 1980

23 Second Ariane space rocket (02) launched from Kourou, French Guiana,crashes into the sea following first stage engine fault.

26 Soviets launch Soyuz 36 from Baikonur at 2121 hrs Moscow time with cosmonauts Valery Kubasov, 45, and Air Force Captain Bertalan Farkas,30 (Hungarian). Docked with Salyut 6 on 28 May for series of experiments with resident crew.

June 1980

3 Re-entry module of Soyuz 35 soft-lands with cosmonauts Kubasov and Farkas some 87 miles (140 km) SE of Dzhezkazgan.

5 Soviets launch Soyuz T-2 spacecraft from Baikonur at 1719 hrs Moscow time with cosmonauts Yuri Malyshev, 38, and Vladimir Aksyonov, 45. Spacecraft has solar arrays; also computer-controlled docking system making cosmonauts independent of ground control.

6 Soyuz T-2 docks with Salyut 6/Soyuz 36 complex on aft airlock under manual control after docking system had brought it within 590 ft (180 m) of station. (Soyuz 36 had been re-docked earlier on Salyut’s forward airlock). Cosmonauts tested “various mechanisms and new on-board systems; before starting a manoeuvre the computer asks the crew’s permission and only with this does it proceed ... electronic devices can now change the orbit and orient the ship to any given star speedily and with lower fuel consumption.” During the flight new spacesuits were tested; a "refraction” experiment involved observing and photographing the rising and setting Sun over the Earth’s horizon. Visual observations and photography of Earth and oceans involved use of the station’s spectrophotometer and multi-band cameras.

9 Re-entry module of Soyuz T-2 soft lands some 124 miles (200 km) SE of Dzhezkazgan.

16 Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that a 12-person, 98-ton space station will be ready for launching in the USSR in 1987 by a rocket more powerful than Saturn 5.

25 British Aerospace Dynamics Croup, Space and Communications Division, announces completion under contract to European Space Agency of a study of the possibility of intercepting Halley’s Comet by a satellite called Giotto based on the successful GEOS 1 and 2 design. The satellite is to pass within 621 miles (1,000 km) of the comet to obtain data on chemical composition of the coma region surrounding the nucleus and the tail; a camera will take pictures of the comet’s nucleus and measurements will also be made of its magnetic field.

29 Soviets launch Progress 10 unmanned cargo craft which docks automatically with Salyut 6/Soyuz 36 combination on aft airlock 1 July. Re-entered atmosphere over Pacific Ocean 19 July.

July 1980

7 NASA and ESA announce that two European scientists have entered NASA’s Mission Specialist training programme at the Johnson Space Center. Houston. They are:

• Claude Nicollier, 33, Swiss, an astronomer formerly at the European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, Netherlands; and

• Wubbo Ockels, 31, Dutch, a physicist formerly with Croenigen University,Netherlands.

Both Nicollier and Ockels are now ESA employees and also Spacelab 1 Payload Specialist Candidates.

12 Mr. Michael Marshall, UK Under-Secretary for Industry, informs Parliament that Central Policy Review Staff will make a general survey of space activities to help industry take advantage of new opportunities in the field of satellites and communications. They would also consider how the various departmental interests were coordinated. "We also wish to examine the national and international opportunities and how to give Britain's industry the maximum opportunity to exploit them," he said.

12 Static test of three-engine cluster of Space Shuttle's main propulsion system,scheduled to last 542 seconds, is terminated at 106 seconds because of fire indication in the aft compartment of the Orbiter simulator. A small hole in the No 3 engine fuel preburner allowed burning gases to escape into the region above the heat shield where the engine power heads are located.

18 India launches 77 lb (35 kg) Rohini test-satellite by four-stage, solid-fuel, SLV-3 rocket of Indian design and manufacture. Launch site: Sriharikota Island, north of Madras. The orbit is 180x559 miles (290x900 km) inclined at 45 deg to equator.

23 Soviets launch Soyuz 37 from Baikonur cosmodrome at 2302 hrs Moscow time with cosmonauts Col Viktor Gorbatko and Col Pham Tuan (Vietnamese).

24 Soyuz 37 docks with Salyut 6/Soyuz 36 complex on aft airlock. After carrying out experiments with resident crew (Popov and Ryumin), they returned to Earth on 31 July in Soyuz 36. Experiments carried out in conjunction with resident crew (Popov and Ryumin) included space medicine and biology, space technology, mapping of the surface of land and ocean, including parts of the territory of Vietnam.