Salyut 1

Launch Success

Liftoff Time (GMT)

01:40:00

Monday April 19, 1971

Mission Details

Launch Notes

First space station in history. First Soviet space station.

Salyut 1

Wiki

Salyut 1 (DOS-1) (Russian: Салют-1) was the first space station launched into low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971. The Salyut program followed this with five more successful launches of seven more stations. The final module of the program, Zvezda (DOS-8), became the core of the Russian segment of the International Space Station and remains in orbit. Salyut 1 was modified from one of the Almaz airframes, and was made out of five components: transfer compartment, main compartment, two auxiliary compartments, and Orion 1 Space Observatory. Salyut 1 was visited by Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 11. The hard-docking of Soyuz 10 failed and the crew had to abort this mission. The Soyuz 11 crew achieved successful hard docking and performed experiments in Salyut 1 for 23 days. However, they were killed by asphyxia caused by failure of a valve just prior to Earth reentry, and are the only known people to have died above the Kármán line. Salyut 1's mission was later terminated, and it reentered on October 11, 1971.

Low Earth Orbit

1 Payload

18,425 kilograms

Rocket

Retired
Proton-K

Active 1968 to 2000

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center logo

Manufacturer

Khrunichev

Rocket

Height: 56.14m

Payload to Orbit

LEO: 20,100 kg

GTO: 0 kg

Liftoff Thrust

9,469 Kilonewtons

Fairing

Diameter: 4.15m

Height: 16.12m

Stages

3

Launch Site

Site 81/24

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

Fastest Turnaround

6 days

Stats

Proton-K


26th

Mission

1st

Mission of 1971

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center


569th

Mission

22nd

Mission of 1971

1971


35th

Orbital launch attempt