Soyuz 11 was the only crewed mission to board the world's first space station, Salyut 1. The crew, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev, arrived at the space station on 7 June 1971 and departed on 29 June. The mission ended in disaster when the crew capsule depressurized during preparations for reentry, killing the three-man crew.
The Soyuz 7K-OKS spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in central Kazakh SSR. Several months earlier, the first mission to the Salyut, Soyuz 10, had failed to successfully dock with the station. Soyuz 11 successfully docked with Salyut 1 on 7 June and the cosmonauts remained on board for 22 days, setting space endurance records.

Upon first entering the station, the crew encountered a smoky and burnt atmosphere and after replacing part of the ventilation system spent the next day back in their Soyuz until the air cleared. Their stay in Salyut was productive, including live television broadcasts. A fire broke out on day 11 of their stay, causing mission planners to consider abandoning the station. The planned highlight of the mission was to have been the observation of an N1 rocket launch, but the launch was postponed. The crew also found that using the exercise treadmill as they were required to twice a day caused the whole station to vibrate. Pravda released news of the mission and regular updates while it was in progress.

This is Soyuz's 17th flight, and 10th crewed flight.

The Soyuz is a Soviet crewed spaceship, developed to made manned lunar missions. This version called 7K will fly 4 times on the giant launcher N1, and several tens of times on Proton to fly over the Moon, which will be successful during the mission Zond 4. Soyuz will become the first spacecraft to transport living beings to the Moon during the flight of Zond 5, with two turtles. Subsequently, it is adapted to low orbit and will fly on the Soyuz launcher to serve the Salyut and Mir stations and the ISS.