Status
Success
Soyuz 25
Sun Oct 09, 1977 02:40 UTC
The cosmonauts named the spacecraft Фотон ("Foton").
Rocket
Mission Details
Soyuz 25
Soyuz 25 was a 1977 Soviet crewed space flight, the first to the new Salyut 6 space station, which had been launched 10 days earlier. However, the mission was aborted when cosmonauts Vladimir Kovalyonok and Valery Ryumin failed to engage the docking latches of the station despite five attempts. Lacking sufficient fuel to attempt a dock at the other end of the station and with battery power for only two days, they returned to Earth.
The failure led to a new rule whereby every crew had to have at least one person aboard who had previously flown in space.
This is Soyuz's 41th flight, and 24th 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.