Zond (7K-L1) cockpit layout

Sven Grahn

The pictures below were published in the 1970's and show cosmonauts Kubasov (left picture) and Yeliseyev (picture on the right) in something that editors probably thought was a Soyuz simulator. I stumbled on these pictures in the 1975-79 period and immediately recognized that the instrument panel was not that of Soyuz craft at that time. The immediate thought that I had was that these were pictures of the Zond (7K-L1) simulator that had slipped past ignorant censors.

Click on pictures to see enlarged
version

The instrument panel of Soyuz craft at that time (including ASTP) looked like the picture below:

The differences between this instrument panel and the supposedly Zond panel can be summarized:

The rotating globe showing the subsatellite point has been removed
The programmer/sequencer does not look the same
The CRT has a different frame
The delta-v monitor on the main panel removed
The time-line indicator removed
The spacecraft clock has been been moved to the centre of the panel
Cabin atmosphere meters moved to extra boxes on top of the panel together with voltage/ampmeters
The critical command buttons moved
The caution/warning light panel has been expanded?
A still camera or TV camera seems to have been added to the left top of the panel

In 1980 I drew a sketch of the Zond instrument panel reproduced below:

An interesting feature of these pictures is the way in which the cosmonaut seems tom be seated. In the Soyuz there are very few instruments in the part of cabin where the cosmonauts have their gaze centred. Maybe the cosmonauts are shown operating some Zond-specific cockpit gear - why not a navigation work station.

If this is so, it is vaguely similar to the nav-station in the Apollo CSM. This hypothesis is somewhat supported if we examine a blow-up of the picture of Valeri Kubasov and what he has in his hands. A celestial sphere! A simple navigation tool for a moon-traveler!

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