Soyuz 9

Mission

The flight served as a preparatory run for planned long-duration space station missions, testing hardware and crew capacity for extended exposure to space conditions. The crew observed and photographed geological and geographical objects, weather formations, water surfaces, and snow and ice covers. They also conducted celestial observations and practiced astronavigation by locking onto Vega or Canopus and using a sextant to measure its relation to the Earth horizon, refining orbital elements to three decimal places.

Soyuz 9 was planned as the first crewed Soviet night launch, originally hoped for April 22 to commemorate the centennial of Lenin's birth, but the mission took two more months to prepare. Damage from a Zenit launch on May 20, when wind blew exhaust flames through cabling, was quickly repaired. Further delays came from problems with the spacecraft's electrical system and a propellant feed system fault on the Blok I stage, an issue seen on several Zenit launches but not previously on a Soyuz.

The booster was rolled out and erected on 1 June, with prelaunch preparations proceeding smoothly. Liftoff occurred at 11:00 PM Moscow time, inserting the spacecraft into a 136x128 mile orbit. The cosmonauts fired the engine to reach 132x167 miles, and another burn on 2 June placed Soyuz 9 in a 165x153 mile orbit at 51° inclination, considered stable for the mission's duration.

Chess game

During the mission, the two cosmonauts played a chess game against head of cosmonauts Nikolai Kamanin and fellow cosmonaut Viktor Gorbatko on Earth, the first documented game played by humans in space. The cosmonauts played as White, jointly deciding each move, while the Earth players played as Black. The set used aboard Soyuz 9 had pegs and grooves to keep pieces in place and lacked magnets to avoid interfering with spacecraft systems. The game began as a Queen's Gambit Accepted, with both sides castling kingside.

Material was exchanged evenly, and toward the end White checked Black four times, followed by a rapid exchange of remaining pieces. At 35. Qxf6+, Black responded with 35... Kg8, the only legal move.

The final position had each side with a queen and five pawns and no passed pawns, resulting in a draw. Sevastyanov, a chess enthusiast, later served as president of the Soviet Chess Federation from 1977-86 and 1988-89.

Return

The Soyuz 9 capsule touched down in the Kazakh steppe, and the crew was quickly retrieved. Returning to Earth’s gravity proved challenging; the two cosmonauts needed assistance leaving the descent module and could barely walk for several days. This mission highlighted the need for onboard exercise equipment. Following the landing, the pair spent two weeks in a quarantine facility built for lunar-returning crews. Soviet media claimed this was to shield them from infections if spaceflight had compromised their immunity, but it was more likely a rehearsal for the still-active Soviet lunar program.