The Stars My Destination: Apollo-Soyuz

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (15-24 July 1975)
Apollo
Thomas Stafford, Commander
Vance Brand, Command Module Pilot
Donald "Deke" Slayton, Docking Module Pilot

Command Module: CSM-111

Soyuz 19
Alexei Leonov, Commander
Valery Kubasov, Flight Engineer

Capsule: Soyuz 7K-TM № 75

The Wayback Machine Tour of Apollo-Soyuz
"The Explorers' Club," № MXCIX: The 50th Anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, Part I
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
"The Explorers' Club," № MC: The 50th Anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, Part II
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
"The Explorers' Club," № MCI: The 50th Anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, Part III

The Stars My Destination: Expedition 75

Please Stand By | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

International Space Station Expedition 75 began on Sunday, 26 July 2026 with the departure of Soyuz MS-28 (A.K.A. Soyuz 74S). Expedition 75 is expected to continue until April 2027.

Commentary: Even back in the day, the "The Stars My Destination" posts about I.S.S. expeditions were a bit of a mess. I'm thinking about how to improve those going forward, & to catch up with the backlog after I work through the Launch America & Artemis backlogs. Stay tuned.

The Explorers' Club, № MCLXVII

Operation AXIOM: The Space Age—The 50th Anniversary of Soyuz 21
6 July-24 August 1976: Soyuz 21 lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome, with CDR Boris Volynov & F.E. Vitaly Zholobov aboard a Soyuz 7K-T capsule atop a Soyuz rocket; call sign Baikal (Lake Baikal); the duo docked with & boarded the Salyut 5 space station; after forty-eight days, due to toxic fumes in Salyut 5, they emergency evacuated & landed in the Kazakh S.S.R.

Commentary: Soyuz 21 was the Soviets' first crewed flight in almost a year, since the landings of Soyuz 19 (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project) on 21 July 1975 & Soyuz 18 (from Salyut 4) on 26 July 1975. Soyuz 20 was an uncrewed flight that spent three months docked to Salyut 4 (17 November 1975-16 February 1976); this was unusual because most uncrewed test flights of Soyuz spacecraft were given the generic Kosmos designation.

Zholobov's illness from the toxic fumes was worse than Volynov's, & the next crew to visit Salyut 5 wore breathing appartus & vented the contaminated atmosphere into space. There are contrary reports that nothing was wrong with the station's atmosphere & Volynov & Zholobov deteriorated from a lack of exercise & sleep; or, the duo experienced a severe but unspecified interpersonal conflict. Maybe some combination of all three theories? The Soviet space program was always secretive, & a military spy mission like Soyuz 21 all the more so; so, we may never know for sure.

Bonus! Space Age Song o'the Day: Soyuz 21
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Toxic Toast" from Question the Answers (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.

The Star My Destination: The Soyuz 11 Disaster

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 55th Anniversary of Soyuz 11
Fifty-five years ago to the day, 29 June 1971, the Soyuz 11 capsule vented its internal atmosphere into the vacuum of space, asphyxiating to death its crew of three: Commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, Flight Engineer Vladislav Volkov, & Research Engineer Viktor Patsayev. Soyuz 11 had departed the Salyut 1 space station after a three-week residency & was preparing for atmospheric re-entry.

The Soyuz 11 trio were not wearing pressure suits, leaving them defenseless against the sudden capsule depressurization. Cosmonauts had stopped wearing pressure suits, even during launch & re-entry, in order to squeeze more crew into the Voskhod & Soyuz capsules. After the disaster, the Soyuz capsule was redesigned to accommodate a crew of two, wearing pressure suits. The Soyuz 11 trio remain the only humans to have perished in outer space, above the Kármán line (one hundred kilometers/sixty-two miles above mean sea level).

The Soyuz 11 capsule depressurized just prior to atmospheric re-entry, killing its crew of three, 29 June 1971, fifty-five years ago today.

Bonus! Space Race Song o' the Day: The Soyuz 11 Disaster
The Phenomenauts, "Heroes" from For All Mankind (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

The Wayback Machine Tour of the Soyuz 11 Disaster
№ DCCCXXIII: The 50th Anniversary of Soyuz 11, Part I
№ DCCCXXVII: The 50th Anniversary of Soyuz 11, Part II

The Stars My Destination: The Soyuz 1 Disaster

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 59th Anniversary of Soyuz 1
Fifty-nine years ago to the day, 24 April 1967, Pilot Vladimir Komarov perished when his Soyuz 1 capsule crashed into the Earth's surface after its parachutes failed to deploy during atmospheric re-entry, the first man to die during a spaceflight.

Three cosmonauts were meant to launch aboard Soyuz 2, equipped with the same flawed parachute-deployment system, & rendezvous in orbit with Komarov aboard Soyuz 1. The Soyuz 2 launch was called off due to thunderstorms near the launch site; otherwise, they would have perished, too. After the tragedy, the Soyuz program was delayed for eighteen months while the parachute system was redesigned, amidst other refinements.

The Wayback Machine Tour of Soyuz 1
The Explorers' Club, № DCCCLXXVII

Bonus! Space Race Song o' the Day: In Memoriam
The Phenomenauts, "Heroes" from For All Mankind (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Requiescat in pace.

The Stars My Destination: Apollo-Soyuz

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (15-24 July 1975)
Apollo
Thomas Stafford, Commander
Vance Brand, Command Module Pilot
Donald "Deke" Slayton, Docking Module Pilot

Command Module: CSM-111

Soyuz 19
Alexei Leonov, Commander
Valery Kubasov, Flight Engineer

Capsule: Soyuz 7K-TM № 75

The Wayback Machine Tour of Apollo-Soyuz
"The Explorers' Club," № MXCIX: The 50th Anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, Part I
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
"The Explorers' Club," № MC: The 50th Anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, Part II
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
Space Age Song o' the Day
"The Explorers' Club," № MCI: The 50th Anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, Part III

Commentary: I ought to have published this back in July, immediately after the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, just as I did for the Apollo Moon missions in December 2022, hot on the heels of the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 17. Instead, I tarried, as I did in recapping the Skylab missions. I regret this tarrying as I regretted that tarrying.

January is scheduled to be a busy month for Space Shuttle anniversaries, but sometime in America's Semiquincentennial year of 2026 seems like a good time to re-recap all fifteen Apollo flights.

The Explorers' Club, № MCI

Operation AXIOM: The Space Age—The 50th Anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, Part III
20-24 July 1975: Cosmonauts Leonov & Kubasov landed in the the Kazakh S.S.R. (21 July); after three more days in orbit, astronauts Stafford, Brand, & Slayton splashed down in the Pacific & were recovered by the U.S.S. New Orleans; due to pilot error during re-entry, toxic fumes were drawn into the unnamed Apollo C.M., Brand lost consciousness, & the trio had to be hospitalized for a fortnight.

Commentary: Soyuz 18 landed in the Kazakh S.S.R. on 26 July 1975. Seven men were on low Earth orbit throughout the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: Stafford, Leonov, Brand, Kubasov, & Slayton, & Soyuz 18 cosmonauts Pyotr Klimuk & Vitaly Sevastyanov aboard the Salyut 4 space station.

This was the last return of an American spacecraft until the landing of the Space Shuttle Columbia on 14 April 1981 at the end of S.T.S.-1; this was the last splashdown of an American capsule until the Crew Dragon Endeavour returned on 2 August 2020 at the end of Crew Demo-2.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Lenka, "Trouble Is a Friend" from Lenka (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Semper exploro.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: Apollo-Soyuz

Operation AXIOM: The 50th Anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
The Chinkees, "She's My Friend" from The Chinkees… Are Coming! (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Commentary: It would take twenty years for the seeds of cooperation planted during Apollo-Soyuz to bear fruit. This one-off example of collaboration between Cold War foes would fall by the wayside during the heightened political & military tensions of the late Seventies & the Eighties. Only with the collapse of the Soviet empire in the late Eighties & the Soviet Union itself in the early Nineties did cooperation again become feasible, manifesting itself first in the Shuttle-Mir program (1993-1998) & then in the International Space Station (1998-present), which is composed of the Russian Orbital Segment (guidance, navigation, & control) & the U.S. Orbital Segment (the orbital laboratory).

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: Apollo-Soyuz

Operation AXIOM: The 50th Anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Save Ferris, "Sorry My Friend" from It Means Everything (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Skammentary: The Americans called the enterprise the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. The Soviets called the enterprise both Experimental Flight Union*-Apollo (Eksperimentalniy polyot "Soyuz"–"Apollon") & Soyuz 19. Despite the Soyuz 19 designation, & contrary to some claims, the American flight was not "Apollo 18." (Apollo 18 was a cancelled Apollo mission to the Moon—originally slated to continue through Apollo 20, until budget cuts forced the lamentable cancellation of missions.)

*Soyuz is Russian for "union."

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: Apollo-Soyuz

Operation AXIOM: The 50th Anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Barenaked Ladies, "Best Damn Friend" from Grinning Streak (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Commentary: Soyuz 19 Commander Alexei Leonov will be forever remembered for the first E.V.A., his twelve-minute spacewalk during Voskhod 2 (1965). Apollo-Soyuz, ten years later, was his second & last spaceflight. Apollo-Soyuz was also Flight Engineer Valery Kubasov's second flight, after Soyuz 6 (1969), though he would journey into space one more time, commanding Soyuz 36 (1980).

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: Apollo-Soyuz

Operation AXIOM: The 50th Anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Queen, "You're My Best Friend" from the Greatest Hits I compilation (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Commentary: The dates of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (15-24 July 1975) line up almost exactly with the dates of Apollo 11 (16-24 July 1969). This makes celebrating the A.S.T.P. more difficult, as even the fifty-sixth anniversary of Armstrong's & Aldrin's first steps on the Moon generally outshines the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: Apollo-Soyuz

Operation AXIOM: The 50th Anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Alpheus, "Friend for Life" from Unify (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Skammentary: In the course of training for & conducting the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, American astronaut Tom Stafford & Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became honest-to-goodness best friends. Leonov became godfather to Stafford's youngest children & Stafford gave the eulogy at Leonov's funeral in 2019. (Stafford shuffled off this mortal coil on 18 March 2024, just sixteen months ago.)

The Explorers' Club, № MC

Operation AXIOM: The Space Age—The 50th Anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, Part II
17-19 July 1975: The Apollo & Soyuz capsules docked, & Stafford, Leonov, Brand, Kubasov, & Slayton shook hands, took turns boarding each other's spacecraft, exchanged flags & gifts, conducted scientific experiments, & read a statement from General Secretary Brezhnev & spoke with President Ford; after undocking, the Apollo eclipsed the Sun so the Soyuz crew could photograph the corona.

Commentary: The Apollo & Soyuz capsules re-docked after the Solar eclipse experiment, but no more crew transfers took place. The two craft were docked for a total of just under forty-eight hours.

N.A.S.A.'s "worm" logo made its debut during the A.S.T.P., as seen above on Deke Slayton's flight suit.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Smash Mouth, "Why Can't We Be Friends?" from Fush Yu Mang (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Semper exploro.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: Apollo-Soyuz

Operation AXIOM: The 50th Anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
The Interrupters, "A Friend Like Me" from The Interrupters (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Skammentary: The Docking Module provided an airlock between the Apollo & Soyuz capsules, which normally operated at different atmospheric pressures & with different gas mixtures. The Androgynous Peripheral Attach System was jointly developed by the Americans & the Soviets, to allow either side to function as either the "active" or the "passive" partner. It was the basis of the docking system used twenty years later during the Shuttle-Mir program & continuing today on the International Space Station. The Docking Module was stored where the Lunar Module would have gone atop the S-IVB second stage, & extracted using a smilar manuever.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: Apollo-Soyuz

Operation AXIOM: The 50th Anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Kemuri, "My Best Friend" from Freedomosh (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Skammentary: Apollo-Soyuz was the fourth flight for Commander Tom Stafford (Gemini VI-A, 1965; Gemini IX-A, 1966; Apollo 10, 1969). 'Twas the first flight for Command Module Pilot Vance Brand, who would have commanded Skylab Rescue, if it had been necessary, & who later commanded three Space Shuttle missions (S.T.S.-5, 1982; S.T.S.-41-B, 1984; & S.T.S.-35, 1990). This was the only flight for Docking Module Pilot "Deke" Slaton, one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, who had been grounded in 1962 on dubious medical grounds.

As of this writing, Major Brand is still alive, aged ninety-four.

The Explorers' Club, № MXCIX

Operation AXIOM: The Space Age—The 50th Anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, Part I
15-16 July 1975: Soyuz 19 lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur, with CDR Alexei Leonov & F.E. Valery Kubasov aboard a Soyuz 7K-TM capsule atop a Soyuz rocket; call sign Soyuz ("Union"); CDR Tom Stafford, C.M.P. Vance Brand, & Docking Module Pilot Donald "Deke" Slayton lifted off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center aboard an unnamed Apollo C.S.M. atop a Saturn IB rocket.

Commentary: Apollo-Soyuz was the final flight of an Apollo Command & Service Module & the last American manned space flight until the Space Shuttle began flying in 1981. So, we here at "The Explorers' Club" are pulling out all the stops & giving the A.S.T.P. the full Apollo mission treatment. The three manned Skylab missions were arguably more interesting & important that the A.S.T.P., but they were just too long for this kind of effort.

Bonus! Space Age Song o' the Day: The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Less Than Jake, "All My Best Friends Are Metalheads" from Hello Rockview (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Commentary: The above image is the American version of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission patch. The Soviet version was identical, just rotated one hundred eighty degrees (180º) so that the red was on the left & the blue on the right. (The different patch orientations can be seen in the crew portrait above.) The Soviet name for the mission was Experimental Flight Soyuz-Apollo.

Semper exploro.

The Star My Destination: The Soyuz 11 Disaster

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 54th Anniversary of Soyuz 11
Fifty-four years ago to the day, 29 June 1971, the Soyuz 11 capsule vented its internal atmosphere into the vacuum of space, asphyxiating to death its crew of three: Commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, Flight Engineer Vladislav Volkov, & Research Engineer Viktor Patsayev. Soyuz 11 had departed the Salyut 1 space station after a three-week residency & was preparing for atmospheric re-entry.

The Soyuz 11 trio were not wearing pressure suits, leaving them defenseless against the sudden capsule depressurization. Cosmonauts had stopped wearing pressure suits, even during launch & re-entry, in order to squeeze more crew into the Voskhod & Soyuz capsules. After the disaster, the Soyuz capsule was redesigned to accommodate a crew of two, wearing pressure suits. The Soyuz 11 trio remain the only humans to have perished in outer space, above the Kármán line (one hundred kilometers/sixty-two miles above mean sea level).

The Soyuz 11 capsule depressurized just prior to atmospheric re-entry, killing its crew of three, 29 June 1971, fifty-four years ago today.

Bonus! Space Race Song o' the Day: The Soyuz 11 Disaster
The Phenomenauts, "Heroes" from For All Mankind (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

The Wayback Machine Tour of the Soyuz 11 Disaster
№ DCCCXXIII: The 50th Anniversary of Soyuz 11, Part I
№ DCCCXXVII: The 50th Anniversary of Soyuz 11, Part II

The Explorers' Club, № MXC

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 50th Anniversary of Soyuz 18
24 May-26 July 1975: Soyuz 18 lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur, with CDR Pyotr Klimuk & F.E. Vitaly Sevastyanov aboard a Soyuz 7K-T capsule atop a Soyuz rocket; call sign Kavkaz ("Caucasus"); the duo docked with & boarded the Salyut 4 space station; after sixty-three days of experiments, with the station's environmental systems degrading, they landed in the Kazakh S.S.R.

Commentary: Soyuz 18 remained on orbit throughout the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (15-24 July 1975). Klimuk & Sevastyanov set a new Soviet endurance record, more than doubling the Soyuz 17 crew's twenty-nine days in space. As with the Soyuz 9 cosmonauts (1-19 June 1970), the Soyuz 18 duo returned to Earth in worse physical condition than long-duration American astronauts who had spend as long or even longer in microgravity.

Bonus! Space Race Song o'the Day: Soyuz 18
The Littlest Man Band, "Stayed Away Too Long" from Better Book Ends (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.

The Stars My Destination: The Soyuz 1 Disaster

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 58th Anniversary of Soyuz 1
Fifty-eight years ago to the day, 24 April 1967, Pilot Vladimir Komarov perished when his Soyuz 1 capsule crashed into the Earth's surface after its parachutes failed to deploy during atmospheric re-entry, the first man to die during a spaceflight.

Three cosmonauts were meant to launch aboard Soyuz 2, equipped with the same flawed parachute-deployment system, & rendezvous in orbit with Komarov aboard Soyuz 1. The Soyuz 2 launch was called off due to thunderstorms near the launch site; otherwise, they would have perished, too. After the tragedy, the Soyuz program was delayed for eighteen months while the parachute system was redesigned, amidst other refinements.

The Wayback Machine Tour of Soyuz 1
The Explorers' Club, № DCCCLXXVII

Bonus! Space Race Song o' the Day: In Memoriam
The Phenomenauts, "Heroes" from For All Mankind (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Requiescat in pace.

The Explorers' Club, № MLXXXII

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 50th Anniversary of the "April 5th Anamoly"
5 April 1975: CDR Vasily Lazarev & Flight Engineer Oleg Makarov lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Soyuz 7K-T capsule atop a Soyuz rocket; callsign Ural ("Ural"); the launch aborted when the third-stage engine ignited before separating from the second stage; the duo suffered twenty-one g's during the abort & landed in deep snow in Siberia near the Chinese border.

Commentary: Colonel Lazarev never fully recovered from his injuries & never flew in space again. The Soviets were unusually forthcoming with information—to N.A.S.A., not to the Soviet citizenry—due to the ongoing preparations for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

The twenty-one-minute suborbital flight is also known as Soyuz 18a or Soyuz 18-1, to differentiate it from the successful orbital flight Soyuz 18 later in 1975. The search for images is complicated by Lazarev & Makarov previously flying Soyuz 12 together in 1973.

Bonus! Space Race Song o' the Day: The "April 5th Anamoly"
Dennis McCarthy, "Out of Control/The Crash" from Star Trek Generations: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.