Kosmos 557 Explained

Station:Kosmos 557 (DOS-3)
Insignia:Salyut program insignia.svg
Insignia Caption:Salyut programme insignia
Cospar Id:1973-026A[1]
Satcat:6498
Crew:3 (intended)
Launch: UTC
Launch Pad:LC-81/23, Baikonur Cosmodrome, USSR
Inclination:51.6 degrees
Period:89.1 minutes
In Orbit:11 days (22 May 1973)
Occupied:0 days (22 May 1973)
Orbits:~175 (22 May 1973)
As Of:11 May 1973
(Unless noted otherwise)
Configuration Image:Salyut 4 and Soyuz drawing.svg
Configuration Caption:The planned orbital configuration of DOS-3

Kosmos 557 (Russian: Космос 557 meaning Cosmos 557), originally designated DOS-3, was the third space station in the Salyut program. It was originally intended to be launched as Salyut-3, but due to its failure to achieve orbit on May 11, 1973, three days before the launch of Skylab, it was renamed Kosmos-557.

Due to errors in the flight control system while out of the range of ground control, the station fired its attitude thruster until it consumed all of its attitude control fuel and became uncontrollable before raising its orbit to the desired altitude. Since the spacecraft was already in orbit and had been registered by Western radar, the Soviets disguised the launch as "Kosmos 557" and quietly allowed it to reenter Earth's atmosphere and burn up a week later. It was revealed to have been a Salyut station only much later.

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Notes and References

  1. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1973-026A NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive