The Soviet Union Salyut programme (Russian: meaning "salute" or "fireworks") was the first to launch space station modules into orbit. The programme involved a series of four crewed scientific research space stations and two crewed military reconnaissance space stations over a period of 15 years, from 1971 to 1986. Two other Salyut launches failed.
The Salyut stations were designed to carry out long-term research into living in space and a variety of astronomical, biological and Earth-resources experiments.
The Soviet Union also wanted to regain its lead in the Space Race with the U.S. after failing to put the first human on the moon.
The civilian Salyut program was also used to cover the launch highly secretive military stations, Salyut Two, Three and Five, called Almaz-OPS (Orbital Piloted Station).
The Salyut stations One, Four, Six and Seven where actually used for science and research called Durable Orbital Station (DOS). These stations included more solar panels than the OPS stations and in later versions they also had more docking ports. These ports could accommodate both crewed and cargo only spacecraft.
Apart from being the first, Salyut stations broke several spaceflight records, including several mission-duration records, the first orbital handover of a space station from one crew to another and various spacewalk records.
Reference: Wikipedia -
Salyut Programme
| NASA - Salyut History
| Encyclopedia Astronautica - Salyut
Sven's Space Place - Space History Notes
| Space Facts - Salyut Expeditions
Salyut Stations contained docking ports that could accommodate either Soyuz, TKS or Progress Soviet spacecraft.
Crews were transported to the station on the Soyuz spacecraft. TKS craft could transport crew but were only used for un-crewed test missions. Progress were cargo only craft with a pressurized module for crew access.
Reference: Wikipedia - Soyuz Spacecraft, TKS Spacecraft, Progress Spacecraft
Salyut stations consisted of a single module which was launched, un-occupied. It used on-board engines and a combination of automation and remote control to place it in the correct orbit.
Crews were then transported to the station on Soyuz spacecraft which remained docked to the station to return the crews to earth. For long duration missions the craft was replaced periodically with fresh
craft by visiting or replacement crews.
Salyut six and seven tested the concept of modular stations by flying for extended periods with TKS spacecraft attached via a docking port. This led the way for the development of the Mir and ISS modular stations.
Salyut Seven was the last Salyut station and the last Soviet single module station. Its basic design, however, was modified for use in later modular type stations; the Core Module the Soviet/Russian Mir station and the Zvezda Service Module of the International Space Station.
Reference: rdataspace - Mir Components, ISS Components
A space station is a Spacecraft built to fly in a permanent, fixed 'Low Earth Orbit'. For example the Salyut 1 station was maintained in a near circular orbit with a perigee of 200km and a apogee of 222 km. At this altitude there is still a small amount of atmosphere, sufficient to cause drag and slow the station down. As it slows the station loses altitude and slows even more. Eventually it would fall out of orbit and be destroyed.
Orbital spacecraft, including space stations, therefore need to be boosted regularly to maintain their orbit. The Salyut stations were able to boost their altitude using on-board rocket engines.
A station is also designed to accommodate a crew who operate and maintain it. The crew must be kept supplied with food, water, oxygen and maintenance items. Salyut had the capacity to support a resident crew of three, or larger crews for short visits.
Originally space stations were envisaged as transfer facilities. Earth to orbit shuttles would deliver people to the station and they would then be transferred to lunar or inter-planetary craft for travel throughout the solar system.
Unfortunately space technology has not progressed to this stage yet. The space stations built so far have been designed with the primary purpose of research.
There were eleven stations related to the Salyut programme. Eight of these were civilian, designated DOS (Durable Orbital Station), and three were military Almaz-OPS (Orbital Piloted Station). Two of the stations failed to reach orbit and two others were used (modified) on the Mir and ISS stations. Therefore only seven of the stations were designated as Salyut.
The table below lists a summary of the stations designations.
| Salyut No. |
DOS No. |
OPS No. |
Launch Date |
Days in orbit |
Notes |
| 1 | 1 | - | 19 Apr 1971 | 175 | World's first space station in low Earth orbit. |
| - | 2 | - | 29 Jul 1972 | 0 | Failed to reach orbit, Proton 2nd stage failed. |
| 2 | - | 1 | 4 Apr 1973 | 54 | First Almaz military station. Failed, no crews visited. |
| - | 3 | - | 11 May 1973 | 11 | Failed to reach orbit. Renamed Kosmos 557. |
| 3 | - | 2 | 25 Jun 1974 | 213 | Second Almaz military station. Two crews visited. |
| 4 | 4 | - | 26 Dec 1974 | 770 | Long duration stays proved system durability. |
| 5 | - | 3 | 22 Jun 1976 | 412 | Third Almaz military station. Two crews visited. |
| 6 | 5 | - | 29 Sep 1977 | 1764 | First station with large numbers of crews. |
| 7 | 6 | - | 19 Apr 1982 | 3216 | Tested docking of additional modules. |
| - | 7 | - | 19 Feb 86 | 4592 | Mir Core Module |
| - | 8 | - | 12 Jul 2000 | ongoing | ISS Service Module Zvezda |