The Explorers' Club, № MXXXIV

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 50th Anniversary of Soyuz 14
3-19 July 1974: Soyuz 14 lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome, with CDR Pavel Popovich & F.E. Yuri Artyukhin aboard a Soyuz 7K-T capsule atop a Soyuz rocket; call sign Berkut ("Golden Eagle"); the duo successfully docked with & boarded the Salyut 3 space station, testing the station's systems & conducting reconnaissance; after fifteen days, they landed in the Kazakh S.S.R.

Commentary: Popovich & Artyukhin were the first cosmonauts to dock with, enter, & undock from a space station, & return home safely. The Soyuz 10 trio had soft-docked with Salyut 1, but were unable to achieve hard dock & enter the station; the doomed Soyuz 11 trio had docked, entered, & undocked from a space station, but the cosmonauts perished during the journey home.

Bonus! Space Race Song o' the Day: Soyuz 14
They Might Be Giants, "Spy" from John Henry (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.