The Apollo Soyuz Test Project was the last mission of the Apollo program. The Apollo missions had already resulted in 4 missions to the moon and due to budgetary concerns the program was being closed down. The only thing left was to do a collaboration with the Soviet Space program. The mission did not match the great technological feat of a moon landing but had symbolic implications. In many ways the mission is seen as the end of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1975 when the mission took place Cold War tensions were already starting to ease and both countries used the mission as a public relations opportunity and a way to improve relations.
The mission did just that by having the two space craft from different space programs dock with each other. This was an interesting feat in itself because it involved adapting to different space craft in a way that they could both dock successfully. The Apollo and Soyuz capsules were both launched on July 15, 1975 respectively from the Kennedy Space Center and the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The members of the Apollo ASTP craft were Thomas P. Stanford as the commander, Vance D. Brand as the command module pilot, and Donald K. Slayton as the docking module pilot. For the Soviet Soyuz crew the members were, Alexi Neonov as commander and Valeri Kubasov as flight engineer.
The two spacecraft met in space at 8 pm EDT on July 17, 1975. Afterward the two crews met and performed joint experiments, exchanged gifts, and signed certificates to commemorate the event. The two crews further collaborated after docking by having the Apollo craft form an artificial solar eclipse. This allowed the crew of the Soyuz craft to be able to take pictures of the Sun’s corona.
The mission was declared an overall success and helped to successfully close a major chapter in the mission of space exploration. It would be the last time that space exploration would be used directly as measurement of a nation’s military capacity and was the first of many collaboration between NASA and the Soviet space program. The technologies and practical experiments would later make major achievements like the International Space Station possible.
If you enjoyed this article there are other articles that you can read on Universe Today. There is a great article about the Space Race and another interesting article about the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
There are also some great resources online that talk about the mission in greater detail. There is a great article on the NASA history web site. There is another article on the centennial of flight web site.
You should also listen Astronomy Cast, a podcast series on space and astronomy. Episode 124 Space Capsules Part 1 is a great episode.
References:
NASA History: Apollo Soyuz
NASA: Apollo Soyuz
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