Aleksei Aleksandrovich Gubarev (
cyrillic Алексей Александрович Губарев) was born on
March 29, 1931 in the village of
Gvardeitsy,
Russia. From
1936 his family lived on a
Collective Farm. Then in
1950 he graduated from the middle school in
Kryukovo and entered
Naval Aviation School for Aircraft Mechanics. After graduation in
1952, he served with the Soviet Air Force. In
1961, he graduated from the
Gagarin Air Force Academy and was assigned for service with
Black Sea aviation units, where he served as a
squadron commander.
His first assignment was to the group of cosmonauts training for flights to the moon. He was also a member of the group training to fly the Soyuz VI. This was a spacecraft designed in response to the American Manned Orbiting Laboratory and was outfitted with a recoilless gun developed by the well known Soviet designer Aleksandr Nudelman. The orbital module and reentry module were swapped around. Installed in the orbital module was military equipment including radar, cameras, radio direction finders and ELINT. And so it could stay in orbit for a month it was powered by RTGs. The spacecraft was cancelled after problems were found in 'cutting' a hatch in the heat shield and after the MOL was cancelled in the US.
He was then on the backup and support crews for the first flights to the civilian Salyut space stations. These missions were cancelled after the failure of the second and third soon after launch.
He was on the backup crew for the Soyuz 12 flight. This mission tested out the newly improved Soyuz spacecraft after the fatal Soyuz 11 mission. It featured batteries instead of solar panels and only had space for two crewmembers, who now wore spacesuits.
His first flight was Soyuz 17, launched January 11, 1975. This was the first mission to the Salyut 4 space station and was a month long. During the mission the crew operated various astrophysical experiments and investigated the effects of microgravity on themselves and various organisms.
His second and last mission was Soyuz 28. This was the first Intercosmos mission and featured 'guest' cosmonauts from other Socialist countries. On board was Vladimir Remek from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. They stayed on board Salyut 6 with the crew of Soyuz 27 for a week.
In all he spent 37 days, 11 hours and 36 minutes in space over two missions.
He left the cosmonaut corps in 1981, but continued working at the Gagarin Training Centre at Star City.
He was twice Hero of the Soviet Union (by Decrees of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on February 12, 1975 and March 16, 1978), has two Orders of Lenin. He is also a Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. From the FAI he received the Gagarin Medal and from the USSR Academy of Science, the Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal. He is an honourary citizen of the cities of Kaluga (Russia), Arkalyk, Tselinograd (Kazakhstan) and Prague (Czechoslovakia).
- http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/cosmonauts/english/gubarev_aleksei.htm
- http://www.spacepatches.info/salyut/s28.html
- http://www.space.hobby.ru/astronauts/gubarev.html
- http://www.astronautix.com/astros/gubarev.htm