Soyuz Space-Station
Missions Since 1971, Soyuz spacecraft have been used primarily to ferry crews and supplies between the
Earth and a series of Soviet space stations. Only a small number of manned Soyuz
missions have been independent of these stations and were conducted primarily to test Soyuz modifications or new kinds of scientific experiments. In addition, the nine-day mission of Soyuz 22 on Sept. 15Ð23, 1976, involved Earth photography and military reconnaissance. The first space-station mission took place on Apr. 23Ð25, 1971, when
cosmonauts Shatalov, Yeliseyev, and Nikolay Rukavishnikov successfully docked their Soyuz 10 with Salyut 1 but did not attempt to enter the newly orbited station. During the next flight, that of Soyuz 11 with a crew consisting of Georgy Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov, the men entered the space station on June 6, 1971, and lived there for more than three weeks. The mission ended in disaster, however, because during reentry on June 30 a pressure-equalization valve in the hull of the command module was jarred open, and all three men died of asphyxiation. As a result no Soviet-manned missions took place for more than two years. A manned test flight of a redesigned Soyuz 12 then took place on Sept. 27Ð29, 1973. It was carried out with no mishaps, and the manned program was resumed. The Soyuz-Salyut missions thereafter provided a number of space "firsts," most notably the endurance records for life in orbit that were repeatedly set and broken by successive teams of cosmonauts. The program experienced a number of setbacks, as well, such as the failures to rendezvous with their Salyut targets by Soyuz 15 (1974), Soyuz 23 (1976), Soyuz 25 (1977), and Soyuz T8 (1983); the launch failure of Soyuz 18A (1975); and the propulsion-system failure of Soyuz 33 (1979). In addition, the Soyuz T10-A crew survived a launchpad fire and explosion in 1983 with the aid of their escape tower. The Soyuz flights also marked another series of firsts by incorporating a program of "guest cosmonauts," for a while only from what was then the Communist bloc of nations but thereafter from several other countries as well. Thus on Mar. 2, 1978, Czech cosmonaut Vladimir Remek became the first non-Soviet and non-U.S. citizen to enter space, aboard Soyuz 28, while on Sept. 18, 1980, as a member of the Soyuz 38 crew, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo MŽndez became the first black person to orbit the Earth. Later missions to the Salyuts and Mir included crew members from India, Syria, France, Japan, and Great Britain. A modified version of Soyuz, called Progress, with cosmonaut equipment replaced by fuel and cargo, began resupplying the Salyut stations on a steady basis in 1978. It continued to do so for the Mir station launched in 1986.