Apollo–Soyuz


A 1973 artist's conception of the docking of the two spacecraft

Mission type Cooperative/scientific
Operator NASA
Soviet space program
COSPAR ID
Soyuz: 1975-065A
Apollo: 1975-066A
SATCAT no.
Soyuz: 8030
Apollo: 8032
Mission duration
Soyuz: 5d 22h 30m
Apollo: 9d 01h 28m
Orbits completed
Soyuz: 96
Apollo: 148
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft
Soyuz 7K-TM No. 75
Apollo CSM-111
Docking Module
Manufacturer NPO Energia
North American Rockwell
Launch mass
Soyuz: 6,790 kg (14,970 lb)
Apollo: 14,768 kg (32,558 lb)
Docking Module: 2,012 kg (4,436 lb)
Crew
Crew size Soyuz: 2
Apollo: 3
Members
Soyuz:
Alexei Leonov
Valery Kubasov
Apollo:
Thomas P. Stafford
Vance D. Brand
Deke Slayton
Start of mission
Launch date
Soyuz: 15 July 1975, 12:20:00 UTC
Apollo: 15 July 1975, 19:50:00 UTC
Rocket Soyuz: Soyuz-U
Apollo: Saturn IB (SA-210)
Launch site
Soyuz: Baikonur, Site 1/5
Apollo: Kennedy, LC‑39B
End of mission
Recovered by
Soyuz: Soviet Armed Forces
Apollo: USS New Orleans
Landing date
Soyuz: 21 July 1975, 10:50:51 UTC
Apollo: 24 July 1975, 21:18:24 UTC
Landing site
Soyuz: Kazakh Steppe (50°47′N 67°7′E)
Apollo: Pacific Ocean, near Hawaii (22°0′36″N 163°0′45″W)
Orbital parameters
Reference system Geocentric orbit
Regime Low Earth orbit
Perigee altitude 217.0 km (134.8 mi)
Apogee altitude 231.0 km (143.5 mi)
Inclination 51.8°[1]
Period 88.91 minutes
Docking
Docking date 17 July 1975, 16:09:09 UTC
Undocking date 19 July 1975, 12:12:00 UTC
Time docked 44 hours, 2 minutes and 51 seconds
Docking
Docking date 19 July 1975, 12:33:39 UTC
Undocking date 19 July 1975, 15:26:12 UTC
Time docked 2 hours, 52 minutes and 33 seconds

Back Row: Stafford, Leonov
Front Row: Slayton, Brand, Kubasov
Apollo program
← Apollo 17
Soyuz programme
← Soyuz 18Kosmos 772 →
Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as an American Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule. The project, and its "handshake" in space, was a symbol of détente between the two superpowers amid the Cold War.

The Americans officially called the mission the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) while the Soviets called it Experimental flight "Soyuz"–"Apollo" (Russian: Экспериментальный полёт «Союз»–«Аполлон», romanized: Eksperimentalniy polyot "Soyuz"–"Apollon&quot and Soyuz 19. The unnumbered American spacecraft was left over from canceled Apollo missions and was the last Apollo module to fly.

The mission consisted of three American astronauts (Thomas P. Stafford, Vance D. Brand, and Deke Slayton) and two Soviet cosmonauts (Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov) who performed both joint and separate scientific experiments, including an arranged eclipse of the Sun by the Apollo module to allow instruments on the Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona. The pre-flight work provided useful experience for later joint American–Russian space flights, such as the Shuttle–Mir program and the International Space Station.

Apollo–Soyuz was the last crewed United States spaceflight for nearly six years until the first launch of the Space Shuttle on 12 April 1981, and the last crewed United States spaceflight in a space capsule until Crew Dragon Demo-2 on 30 May 2020.

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Launch and mission
The Soyuz and Apollo flights launched within seven-and-a-half hours of each other on 15 July 1975, and docked on 17 July 1975. Three hours later, the two mission commanders, Stafford and Leonov, exchanged the first international handshake in space through the open hatch of the Soyuz. NASA had calculated that the historic handshake would have taken place over the British seaside resort of Bognor Regis,[17] but a delay resulted in its occurrence being over the city of Metz in France.[18] During the first crew exchange, the crews were read a statement from Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, and received a phone call from U.S. President Gerald Ford.

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