Soyuz 14

Soyuz 14 was a 1974 crewed spaceflight to the Salyut 3 space station. The mission's crew members were cosmonauts Yuri Artyukhin and Pavel Popovich. At the time, the military nature of this mission and the station itself were not acknowledged by Soviet authorities. The mission proved to be the only one for Salyut 3 as Soyuz 15 failed to dock with the station in August and the station was de-orbited January 1975. With the Salyut 3 space station successfully launched on 24 June 1974, Soyuz 14 was sent into orbit nine days later. The craft docked with the space station the next day, performing a manual approach for the last 100 metres. The crew tested the suitability of Salyut 3 as a crewed military reconnaissance platform. They also tested Almaz station systems, such as the solar arrays. The cosmonauts exercised for two hours each day to counter the effects of weightlessness. Because of this, they were able to climb from their Soyuz descent module without assistance when their flight ended on 19 July. The crew left enough supplies on Salyut 3 to last the next crew at least six months. This is Soyuz's 24th flight, and 13th 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.