science

Soyuz 22

Soyuz 22 is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Soyuz 22 rather than just read about it. In short: Soyuz 22 (Russian: Союз 22, Union 22) was a September 1976, Soviet crewed spaceflight. It was an Earth sciences mission using a modified Soyuz spacecraft, and was also, some observers speculated, a mission to observe NATO exercises near Norway.

Key takeaways

Soyuz 22 belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Soyuz 22 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Soyuz 22 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Soyuz 22 (Russian: Союз 22, Union 22) was a September 1976, Soviet crewed spaceflight. It was an Earth sciences mission using a modified Soyuz spacecraft, and was also, some observers speculated, a mission to observe NATO exercises near Norway. The spacecraft was a refurbished Soyuz that had served as a backup for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission the previous year. Cosmonauts Valery Bykovsky and Vladimir Aksyonov spent a week in orbit photographing the surface of the Earth with a specially-built camera.

Crew

Backup crew

Reserve crew

Mission highlights Soyuz 22 was launched to orbit 15 September 1976 at the unusually high inclination of 64.75°, not used since the Voskhod program. The orbiting Salyut 5 space station was at the standard 51.7° inclination, which led some observers to conclude that this solo Soyuz mission was chiefly intended to observe NATO's Exercise Teamwork, taking place in Norway, well above 51.0° latitude and therefore outside good visual range of the space station. However, the particular camera used, an MKF-6 multispectral Carl Zeiss camera which allowed six simultaneous photographs to be taken, suggested to others that reconnaissance, if part of the mission, was a minor part of it. Soyuz 22's orbital inclination maximized ground coverage, especially of the former East Germany. There were two orbit changes within 24 hours of launch. The first came on the fourth orbit and changed the orbit to 250 by 280 km (160 by 170 mi). The second, on the sixteenth orbit, circularized the orbit to 251 by 257 km (156 by 160 mi). The mission's stated objectives were to "check and improve scientific and technical methods and means of studying geological features of the Earth's surface in the interests of the national economies of the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic". The vehicle was the modified ASTP back-up ship. In place of the APAS-75 androgynous docking system, it carried an East German MKF-6 multispectral camera, built by Carl Zeiss-Jena. One cosmonaut would control the operations of the camera from inside the Orbital module while the second changed the orientation from the Descent module. The camera had six lenses, four visible light and two infrared, which imaged a preselected 165 km (103 mi)-wide strip of the Earth's surface. This allowed over 500,000 km2 (190,000 sq mi) to be imaged in 10 minutes. The first test images from the camera were of Baikal-Amur railway that was being constructed. On the third day of the mission the crew took photographs of Siberia to the sea of Okhotsk in the morning and the northwestern USSR. On the fourth day, the crew imaged the Moon rising and setting to investigate the Earth's atmosphere. This also allowed them to see how clean their spacecraft's windows were. They also imaged Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and Siberia, with attention to geological formations and agricultural effects. The fifth day focused on Azerbaijan, the southern Urals, the Baikal-Amur railway again, and Western Siberia. At the same time a second camera was being flown on an aircraft over the same areas in order to compare the images. The sixth day saw images of Siberia, the Northern USSR, and European USSR which were, according to TASS, areas that had never before been "targets of space photography". The last full day had the crew focus on East Germany, where an Antonov An-30 aircraft was flying carrying an identical camera to the one aboard Soyuz 22. They also re-photographed Central Asia, Kazakhstan, eastern Siberia, and the southwestern USSR in order to compare images with those taken earlier in the mission. One of the tasks the crew undertook was to dismantle the camera in order to remove its color filters needed to calibrate the images back on Earth. The task took them several hours to complete. The crew also performed several biological experiments. They ran a small centrifuge in the orbital module to see how plants grew in artificial gravity. They also investigated the effects of cosmic rays on human vision. This effect had first been reported by Apollo astronauts who described bright flashes when they closed their eyes. This was due to cosmic rays passing through the eye. Soyuz 22 also carried a small aquarium so that the crew could watch the behavior of fish. At the end of the mission, the crew took the film cassettes and other items they were returning to Earth and stowed them in the descent module. The retrofire, re-entry, and landing took place without incident on 23 September 1976. The crew had photographed 30 geographic areas in 2400 photographs. None of the cassettes were found to be faulty and all the images were of good quality. The results, it was said, would aid experts in the fields of agriculture, cartography, mineralogy, and hydrology.

Mission parameters Mass: 6,570 kg (14,480 lb) Perigee: 250.0 km (155.3 mi) Apogee: 280.0 km (174.0 mi) Inclination: 64.75° Period: 89.6 minutes

References

What Do You Do With A Spare Spacecraft? Soyuz 22 at the Encyclopedia Astronautica

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Soyuz 22

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Soyuz 22 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Soyuz 22 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Soyuz 22 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Soyuz 22

In research: Soyuz 22 appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Soyuz 22 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Soyuz 22 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1976 in East Germany, 1976 in the Soviet Union, Crewed Soyuz missions, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Soyuz 22 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Soyuz 22 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Soyuz 22 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Soyuz 22 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Soyuz 22 in simple terms?

Why does Soyuz 22 matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Soyuz 22?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Soyuz 22.