Soyuz 2 (Russian: Союз 2, Union 2) was an uncrewed spacecraft in the Soyuz family intended to be the target of a docking maneuver by the crewed Soyuz 3 spacecraft. It was intended to be the first docking of a crewed spacecraft in the Soviet space program. Although the two craft approached closely, the docking did not take place and the first successful Soviet docking of crewed spacecraft took place in the joint Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 mission. It served for the radio search and as a target vehicle for docking by the crewed Soyuz 3. Soyuz 2 soft-landed in a predetermined area of the Soviet Union.[1]

Soyuz 2

Mission type	Test flight
Operator	Experimental Design Bureau (OKB-1)
COSPAR ID	1968-093A
SATCAT no.	03511
Mission duration	3 days
Orbits completed	48
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft	Soyuz 7K-OK No.2
Spacecraft type	Soyuz 7K-OK (passive)
Manufacturer	Experimental Design Bureau (OKB-1)
Launch mass	6,520 kg (14,370 lb) [1]
Landing mass	2,800 kg (6,200 lb)
Dimensions	7.13 m (23.4 ft) long 2.72 m (8 ft 11 in) wide
Start of mission
Launch date	25 October 1968, 09:00 GMT
Rocket	Soyuz
Launch site	Baikonur, Site 1/5[2]
Contractor	Experimental Design Bureau (OKB-1)
End of mission
Landing date	28 October 1968, 07:51 GMT
Landing site	Kazakh Steppe, Kazakhstan
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric orbit[3]
Regime	Low Earth orbit
Perigee altitude	196.0 km (121.8 mi)
Apogee altitude	200.0 km (124.3 mi)
Inclination	51.70°
Period	88.50 minutes
Soyuz programme ← Soyuz 1 Soyuz 3 →

Mission parameters

• Mass: 6,520 kg (14,370 lb) [1]
• Perigee: 196.0 km (121.8 mi) [3]
• Apogee: 200.0 km (124.3 mi)
• Inclination: 51.65°
• Period: 88.50 minutes

"Crew" hoax

Conceptual artist Joan Fontcuberta claimed in 1997 that Soyuz 2 was crewed by Ivan Istochnikov and a dog named Kloka, who disappeared on 26 October 1968, with signs of having been hit by a meteorite. According to Fontcuberta, Soviet officials deleted Istochnikov from official Soviet history to avoid embarrassment; however, the "Sputnik Foundation" discovered Istochnikov's "voice transcriptions, videos, original annotations, some of his personal effects, and photographs taken throughout his lifetime". The exhibition of artifacts (e.g., photographs) related to "Soyuz 2" was shown in many countries, including Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Mexico, Japan, and the United States.[4][5] Among other reactions to the exhibition, a Russian ambassador "got extremely angry because [Fontcuberta] was insulting the glorious Russian past and threatened to present a diplomatic complaint".

Several lines of evidence available since the first exhibition of "Sputnik" in 1997 in Madrid suggested that the story and artifacts form an elaborate hoax:

• The name "Ivan Istochnikov" is a Russian translation of Joan Fontcuberta's name; in specific, "Joan" and "Ivan" both translate to "John"[6][7] and "Fontcuberta" and "Istochnikov" both mean "hidden fountain".
• The photographs of Istochnikov show Fontcuberta's face.
• Pages of the official website of the Madrid exhibition contain the words "PURE FICTION" toward the top of each page in light red text on a dark red background [8] or light pink text on a white background.[9]
• The front and rear endpapers of the catalog accompanying the Madrid exhibition have the words "it's all fiction" in Russian and Spanish printed on them using glow-in-the-dark ink.[10]
• At the website of Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the third of three pages concerning the Madrid exhibition states that "the report which we published on the previous pages is a product of his [Fontcuberta's] imagination".[4]

References

Further reading

• Luna Cornea, Number 14, January/April 1998, p. 58
• The Fabricated Cosmonaut and the Nonexistent Prophecy, Luis Alfonso Gamez, Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 30, number 5 (September/October 2006) p. 12

External links

• Brown University News Service Artists mix fact and fantasy in False Witness exhibition at Bell Gallery.

На других языках

[es] Soyuz 2

[ru] Союз-2