Interkosmos () was a

Soviet space program The Soviet space program () was the state space program of the Soviet Union, active from 1951 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contrary to its competitors (NASA in the United States, the European Space Agency in Western Euro ...

, designed to help the Soviet Union's allies with crewed and uncrewed space missions. The program was formed in April 1967 in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. All members of the program from USSR were given the

Hero of the Soviet Union The title Hero of the Soviet Union () was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The title was awarded both ...

medal or the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

. The program included the allied east-European states of the

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

CoMEcon The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, often abbreviated as Comecon ( ) or CMEA, was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc#List of states, Easter ...

, and other socialist states like

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

, Cuba,

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

, and Vietnam. Non-aligned states such as India and Syria participated, and capitalist states such as the United Kingdom, France and Austria. Following the

Apollo–Soyuz Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international Space exploration, space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as an American Apollo comm ...

mission, there were talks between

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

and Interkosmos in the 1970s about a "Shuttle–Salyut" program to fly

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

missions to a Salyut space station, with later talks in the 1980s even considering flights of the future ''Buran''-class orbiter to a future US space station. Wikisource:Mir Hardware Heritage/Part 2 - Almaz, Salyut, and Mir#2.1.6 Shuttle-Salyut .281973-1978.3B 1980s.29. Whilst the Shuttle–Salyut program never materialized during the existence of the Soviet Interkosmos program, after the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

the

Shuttle–Mir program The Shuttle–''Mir'' program () was a collaborative space program between Russia and the United States that involved American Space Shuttles visiting the Russian space station ''Mir'', Russian cosmonauts flying on the Shuttle, and an American ...

would follow in these footsteps in the mid-1990s and eventually pave the way to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

. Beginning in April 1967 with unpiloted research

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

missions, the first crewed Interkosmos mission occurred in February 1978. Joint crewed spaceflights enabled 14 non-Soviet

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

s to participate in

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз (Russian language, Russian and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Soviet Union, Union of Soviet Socialist Republi ...

space flights between 1978 and 1988. The program was responsible for sending into space the first citizen of a country other than the US or USSR: Vladimír Remek of

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

. Interkosmos also resulted in the first black and Hispanic person in space,

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (born 29 January 1942) is a Cuban military officer, legislator, and former cosmonaut and the first person of African heritage in space. In 1980, as a member of the crew of Soyuz 38, he became the first Cuban citizen, t ...

of Cuba, and the first Asian person in space,

Phạm Tuân Phạm Tuân ( born 14 February 1947) is a retired Vietnam People's Air Force, Vietnamese Air Force fighter pilot and Astronaut#Cosmonaut, cosmonaut. He became the first Vietnamese people, Vietnamese cosmonaut, and the first person of Asian ori ...

of Vietnam. Of the countries involved, only Bulgaria sent two cosmonauts to space, although the second one did not fly under the Interkosmos program, and the French spationaut Jean-Loup Chrétien flew on two flights. The Soviet Union also made offers of joint human spaceflight on a commercial basis to the United Kingdom and Japan, resulting in the first British and Japanese cosmonauts. In the early 1980s, an offer was made to Finland as well, with test pilot Jyrki Laukkanen mentioned as one of the potential Finnish cosmonauts. The pilots of the Test Flight () refused on the grounds that participation would not benefit the flight or test pilot activity in any way. No further offers were made to Finland.

Crewed missions

Uncrewed missions

* 1970 November 28 - Vertikal-1 Aeronomy/Ionosphere/Solar mission. * 1971 August 20 - Vertikal-2 Solar Ultraviolet/Solar X-ray mission. * 1972 April 7 - Interkosmos 6 - Investigation of primary cosmic radiation and meteoritic particles in near-earth outer space. * 1973 April 4 - Interkosmos 9 "''

Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a mathematical model, model of Celestial spheres#Renaissance, the universe that placed heliocentrism, the Sun rather than Earth at its cen ...

-500''" - satellite of cooperation of the

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...

and

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

to study the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

and

ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...

. Orbit around 200–1550 km. * 1975 June 3 - Interkosmos 14 * 1975 September 2 - Vertikal-3 Solar Ultraviolet/Solar X-ray mission. * 1976 - Re-entry Vehicle Test mission. * 1976 June 19 - Interkosmos 15. Testing of new systems and components of satellite under space flight conditions. * 1977 March 29 - Investigation of the upper atmosphere and outer space. * 1977 June 17 - Signe 3 - Twenty French specialists worked on the satellite. * 1977 August 30 - Vertikal-5 Solar Ultraviolet/Solar X-ray mission. * 1977 September 24 - Interkosmos 17 - Investigation of energetic charged and neutral particles and micrometeorite fluxes in circumterrestrial space. * 1977 October 25 - Vertikal-6 Ionosphere/Solar mission?. * 1978 October 24 - Interkosmos 18 - Conduct of complex investigations on the interaction between the magnetosphere and ionosphere of the earth. Cooperation with the

Czechoslovak Socialist Republic The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, (Czech language, Czech and Slovak language, Slovak: ''Československá socialistická republika'', ČSSR) known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic (''Československá republika)'', Fourth Czecho ...

, the

German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

, the

Hungarian People's Republic The Hungarian People's Republic (HPR) was a landlocked country in Central Europe from its formation on 20 August 1949 until the establishment of the current Hungary, Republic of Hungary on 23 October 1989. It was a professed Communist_state# ...

, the

, and the

Socialist Republic of Romania The Socialist Republic of Romania (, RSR) was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist One-party state, one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989 (see Revolutions of 1989). From 1947 to 1965, the state was ...

. * 1978 October 24 - Magion 1 - The Czechoslovak satellite MAGION was launched into orbit by the Soviet spacecraft Interkosmos 18 * 1978 November 3 - Vertikal-7 Ionosphere/Solar mission * 1979 February 27 - Interkosmos 19 - Cooperation with the

People's Republic of Bulgaria The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; , NRB; ) was the official name of Bulgaria when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP; ) together with its coalition partner, the Bulgarian Agraria ...

, the

, and the

. * 1979 September 26 - Vertikal-8 Solar Ultraviolet/Solar X-ray mission. * 1979 November 1 - Interkosmos 20. (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the Hungarian People's Republic, and the Socialist Republic of Romania). * 1981 - Re-entry Vehicle Test mission. * 1981 February 6 - Interkosmos 21 - (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the Hungarian People's Republic, and the Socialist Republic of Romania) * 1981 August 7 - Interkosmos 22 "''Bulgaria-1300''" (People's Republic of Bulgaria). * 1981 August 28 - Vertikal-9 Solar Ultraviolet/Solar X-ray mission. * 1981 September 21 - Oreol 3 - Developed by Soviet and French specialists under the joint Soviet-French project 'Arkad-3'. * 1985 April 26 - Interkosmos 23 - Developed by scientists and specialists of the USSR and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. * 1986 December 18 - Kosmos 1809 * 1989 September 28 - Magion 2 - Magion 2 forms a part of the scientific programme of Interkosmos 24 (project Aktivnyj) Execution of the scientific programme of the 'Aktivny' project in conjunction with Interkosmos-24, permitting simultaneous spatially separating investigations of plasma processes in circumterrestrial space. * 1989 September 28 - Interkosmos 24 - US participation, in cooperation with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania (the international scientific project entitled 'Aktivny'). Carrying the Czechoslovak Magion-2 satellite. * 1991 December 18 - Interkosmos 25 - experiments from

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary. Comprehensive study of the effects of artificial impact of modulated electron flows and plasma beams on the ionosphere and magnetosphere of the Earth (forming part of the Apex international scientific project, conducted jointly with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.) * 1991 December 28 - Magion

* 1994 March 2 - Interkosmos 26 - Conduct of comprehensive investigations of the sun under the Coronas-I international project developed by History of Russia (1992–present), Russian and Ukrainian experiments in cooperation with specialists from Poland, the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

, the

Slovak Republic Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's ...

, Bulgaria, France, and the United Kingdom.

Films

In general, most of the films associated with programs are short TV documentaries from that era. The two exceptions include (largely fictionalised) ''

Interkosmos Interkosmos () was a Soviet space program, designed to help the Soviet Union's allies with Human spaceflight, crewed and Uncrewed spacecraft, uncrewed space missions. The program was formed in April 1967 in Moscow. All members of the program fr ...

'' from 2006, and cooperation document from 2009 (in Polish) titled ''Lotnicy Kosmonauci'' ("Aviators-Cosmonauts").

References

External links

Crewed missions

Uncrewed missions

Films

See also

References

External links