Salyut Program Totally Explained

Everything about The Salyut Program totally explained

The Salyut program (; lit. Salute or Fireworks) was the first space station program undertaken by the Soviet Union, which consisted of a series of nine single-module space stations launched over a period of eleven years from 1971 to 1982. Intended as a project to carry out long-term research into the problems of living in space and a variety of astronomical, biological and Earth-resources experiments, the program allowed space station technology to evolve from the engineering development stage to long-term research outposts in space. Ultimately, experience gained from the Salyut stations went on to pave the way for multimodular space stations such as Mir and the International Space Station, with each of those stations possessing a Salyut-derived core module at its heart.
The program consisted of a series of six scientific research stations (DOS-type) and three military reconnaissance stations (OPS-type) launched as part of the highly secretive Almaz program, and during its development saw a number of spaceflight records broken, including several mission duration records, the first ever orbital handover of a space station from one crew to another and various spacewalk records. By the time the program concluded in 1991, it had seen space station technology evolve from basic, single-docking port stations to complex, multi-ported orbital outposts with impressive scientific capabilities, whose technological legacy continues to the present day.

Stations

The program was composed of DOS (Orbital Space Station) civilian stations and OPS (Orbital Piloted Station) military stations. All were adapted from Vladimir Chelomei's original Almaz OPS spaceframe. For the military Orbital Piloted Stations modifications were small, and related to the rear docking port for Soyuz spacecraft. For the civilian DOS Orbital Space Station' changes were great, with extra solar panels, rear and front docking ports for Soyuz spacecraft, TKS spacecraft and modules.

Salyut 1

Salyut 1 (DOS-1) (Russian: Салют-1; English translation: Salute 1) was launched April 19, 1971. It was the first space station to ever orbit earth. Its first crew launched in Soyuz 10 but were unable to board it due to a failure in the docking mechanism; its second crew launched in Soyuz 11 and remained on board for 23 productive days. Unfortunately, a pressure-equalization valve in the Soyuz 11 reentry capsule opened prematurely when the crew returned to Earth, killing all three. Salyut 1 reentered Earth's atmosphere October 11, 1971.

Data table

Days in orbit	Days occupied	Total crew and visitors	Visiting manned spacecraft	Visiting unmanned spacecraft	Mass kg
175	24	3	2	0	18,500
0	0	0	0	0	18,000
54	0	0	0	0	18,500
11	0	0	0	0	19,400
213	15	2	1	0	18,500
770	92	4	2	1	18,500
412	67	4	2	0	19,000
1,764	683	33	16	14	19,824
3,216	816	26	12	15	18,900

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