Salyut programme

The Salyut programme was the first space station programme, led by the Soviet Union. It included several space stations for science and research, launched between 1971 and 1986. The programme aimed to study life in space and do experiments in astronomy, biology, and Earth resources. Sadly, not all launches were successful.

Salyut flights set many spaceflight records, such as how long crews could stay in space, and were the first to pass a space station from one crew to another. The programme helped make space station technology better and easier to use. What we learned from Salyut helped build bigger space stations like Mir and the International Space Station (ISS).

The last Salyut spacecraft, Mir-2 (DOS-8), became an early part of the ISS. The first ISS module, the Russian-made Zarya, used many ideas from the Salyut programme.

History of Salyut space stations

The Salyut programme was the first space station programme, led by the Soviet Union. It included several crewed scientific research space stations and two military reconnaissance stations over 15 years, from 1971 to 1986.

The programme had two types of space station cores: DOS (Durable Orbital Station) civilian stations and OPS (Orbital Piloted Station) military stations. The DOS stations were designed by Sergei Korolev’s team. The DOS stations were built faster than the Almaz military stations. The first DOS-based station, Salyut 1, launched in 1971, becoming the world’s first space station, two years before America’s Skylab.

Salyut 6 and Salyut 7 were very important. They had two docking ports, allowing two Soyuz spacecraft to visit at the same time. This made it possible to change crews and bring supplies continuously, leading to the first permanent occupation of space stations. The Salyut programme’s ideas lived on in the Mir space station and the International Space Station, with modules like Zvezda coming from the DOS designs.

Data table

The early Salyut space stations had few spacecraft visiting them. Later stations, Salyut 6 and Salyut 7, had many spacecraft coming to meet them. These included both people in spacecraft and uncrewed supply ships. The table below counts only the spacecraft that reached their target space station, whether they docked or not.