Soyuz 33

Soyuz 33

COSPAR ID	1979-029A
SATCAT no.	11324
Mission duration	1 day, 23 hours, 1 minute, 6 seconds
Orbits completed	31
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft type	Soyuz 7K-T
Manufacturer	NPO Energia
Crew
Crew size	2
Members	Nikolai Rukavishnikov Georgi Ivanov
Callsign	Сатурн (Saturn) - "Saturn"
Start of mission
Launch date	April 10, 1979, 17:34:34 (1979-04-10UTC17:34:34Z) UTC
Rocket	Soyuz-U
Launch site	Baikonur 1/5
End of mission
Landing date	April 12, 1979, 16:35:40 (1979-04-12UTC16:35:41Z) UTC
Landing site	320 kilometres (200 mi) SE of Dzhezkazgan
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Low Earth
Soyuz programme (Crewed missions) ← Soyuz 32 Soyuz 34 →

Soyuz 33 (Russian: Союз 33, Union 33) was an April, 1979, Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station.^[1] It was the ninth mission to the orbiting facility, but an engine failure forced the mission to be aborted, and the crew had to return to Earth before docking with the station. It was the first failure of a Soyuz engine during orbital operations.

The two-man crew, commander Nikolai Rukavishnikov and Bulgarian cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov, suffered a steep ballistic re-entry, but were safely recovered. The original intention of the mission had been to visit the orbiting crew for about a week and leave a fresh vehicle for the station crew to return to Earth in. The mission failure meant that the orbiting Salyut 6 crew lacked a reliable return vehicle as their Soyuz had the same suspect engine as Soyuz 33. A subsequent crewed flight was canceled and a vacant craft (Soyuz 34) with a redesigned engine was sent for the crew to use.