The second generation of the

Soyuz spacecraft Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraf ...

, the ''Soyuz 7K-T'', comprised Soyuz 12 through

Soyuz 40 The Soyuz 40 mission was a 1981 Soviet Union, Soviet human spaceflight, crewed spaceflight and the final flight of the Soyuz 7K-T spacecraft. It was a collaboration between the Soviet Union and Romania. Crew Backup crew Mission parameters *M ...

(1973–1981). In the wake of the Soyuz 11 tragedy, the spacecraft was redesigned to accommodate two cosmonauts who would wear pressure suits at all times during launch, docking, undocking, and reentry. The place of the third cosmonaut was taken by extra life-support systems. Finally, the 7K-T, being intended purely as a space station ferry, had no solar panels, instead sporting two large whip antennas in their place. As a result, it relied on batteries which only provided enough power for two days of standalone flight. The idea was that the Soyuz would recharge while docked with a Salyut space station, but in the event of a docking or other mission failure (which ended up happening on several occasions), the crew was forced to power off everything except communications and life support systems until they could reenter. Two test flights of the 7K-T were conducted prior to committing the redesigned Soyuz to a crewed mission. Kosmos 496 was launched on 26 June 1972 and spent a week in space, part of it in powered-down mode. Then on 2 September 1972, an attempted launch of a Zenit reconnaissance satellite failed to orbit due to a malfunction of the vernier engines on the Blok A stage. The existing stock of Soyuz boosters had to be modified to prevent a recurrence of this failure mode on a crewed mission, which delayed the next test until almost a year later when Kosmos 573 launched on 15 June 1973 and spent two days in space. With this done, the way was cleared for the first crewed test, Soyuz 12, in September 1972. In addition, the standalone flights of Soyuz 13, Soyuz 16, Soyuz 19, and Soyuz 22 used a variant of the 7K-T with solar panels, and in the case of 13 and 22, special camera apparatus in place of the docking mechanism. A large Orion 2 astrophysical camera for imaging the sky and Earth were used on the former and an MKF-6 Zeiss camera on the latter. Another modification was the Soyuz 7K-T/A9 used for the flights to the military

Almaz The Almaz () program was a highly secret Soviet Union, Soviet military space station program, begun in the early 1960s. Three crewed military reconnaissance stations were launched between 1973 and 1976: Salyut 2, Salyut 3 and Salyut 5. To co ...

space station. This featured the ability to remote control the space station and a new parachute system and other still classified and unknown changes.

Missions

* Soyuz 12 * Soyuz 13 * Soyuz 14 *

Soyuz 15 Soyuz 15 (, ''Union 15'') was an August 1974 crewed space flight which was to have been the second mission to the Soviet Union's Salyut 3 space station with presumably military objectives. Launched 26 August 1974, the Soyuz spacecraft arriv ...

* Soyuz 17 *

Soyuz 18 Soyuz 18 (, ''Union 18'') was a 1975 Soviet Union, Soviet crewed mission to Salyut 4, the second and final crew to man the space station. Pyotr Klimuk and Vitaly Sevastyanov set a new Soviet space endurance record of 63 days and the mark for ...

Soyuz 21 Soyuz 21 (, ''Union 21'') was a 1976 Soviet crewed mission to the Salyut 5 space station, the first of three flights to the station. The mission's objectives were mainly military in scope, but included other scientific work. The mission ended ...

Soyuz 23 Soyuz 23 (, ''Union 23'') was an October 1976, Soviet crewed space flight, the second to the Salyut 5 space station. Cosmonauts Vyacheslav Zudov and Valery Rozhdestvensky arrived at the station, but an equipment malfunction did not allow do ...

* Soyuz 24 * Soyuz 25 * Soyuz 26 *

Soyuz 27 Soyuz 27 (, ''Union 27'') was a 1978 Soviet crewed spacecraft which flew to the orbiting Salyut 6 space station, during the mission EP-1. It was the third crewed flight to the station, the second successful docking and the first visitation ...

* Soyuz 28 * Soyuz 29 *

Soyuz 30 Soyuz 30 (, ''Union 30'') was a 1978 crewed Soviet space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the sixth mission to and fifth successful docking at the orbiting facility. The Soyuz 30 crew were the first to visit the long-duration Soyuz 2 ...

Soyuz 31 Soyuz 31 (, ''Union 31'') was a 1978 Soviet Union, Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the seventh mission to and sixth successful docking at the orbiting facility. The Soyuz 31 crew were the second to visit the long- ...

* Soyuz 32 *

Soyuz 33 Soyuz 33 (, ''Union 33'') was an April, 1979, Soviet Union, Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the ninth mission to the orbiting facility, but an engine failure forced the mission to be aborted, and the crew had to r ...

* Soyuz 34 * Soyuz 35 *

Soyuz 36 Soyuz 36 (, ''Union 36'') was a 1980 Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the 11th mission to and ninth successful docking at the orbiting facility. The Soyuz 36 crew were the first to visit the long-duration Soyuz 3 ...

Soyuz 37 Soyuz 37 (, ''Union 37'') was a 1980 Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the 13th mission to and 11th successful docking at the orbiting facility. The Soyuz 37 crew were the third to visit the long-duration Soyuz 35 ...

* Soyuz 38 * Soyuz 39 *

Uncrewed tests

* Cosmos 496 * Cosmos 573 * Cosmos 613 * Cosmos 656 * Soyuz 20

External links

*Mir Hardware Heritage ** David S.F. Portree,
Mir Hardware Heritage
', NASA RP-1357, 1995 ** Mir Hardware Heritage (wikisource)
Soyuz 7K-T in Encyclopedia Astronautica

{{Russian human spaceflight programs Crewed spacecraft Soyuz program Vehicles introduced in 1972