  77. Artist conception of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project rendezvous. On May 24, 1972, President Richard Nixon and Aleksey Kosygin, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, signed an agreement “concerning cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.” The signing represented a formal endorsement of negotiations that had been held between the two nations over several years. The agreement established the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) to develop and fly a standardized docking system “to enhance the safety of manned flight in space and to provide the opportunity for conducting joint scientific missions in the future.” On July 15, 1975, the afternoon countdown for the Soviet launch was completed and Soyuz lifted off from the Baykonur complex near Tyuratum in Central Asia, some 3200 kilometers (2000 miles) southeast of Moscow. Soyuz carried cosmonauts Alexey Leonov and Valeriy Kubasov. Taking advantage of Apollo’s larger fuel supply for maneuvering, Apollo followed Soyuz into orbit 7½ hours later. Apollo was launched atop a Saturn 1B from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. After careful maneuvering, the two craft linked up around noon on July 18. Some 225 kilometers (140 miles) above Earth, the astronauts and cosmonauts visited each other’s craft, performed joint experiments, and made further tests of the new docking system. Following the undocking Saturday, Apollo fired its engines briefly and moved away from Soyuz. Soyuz descended from orbit and landed in the south-central USSR early Monday morning, July 21. Astronauts Stafford, Slayton, and Brand remained in orbit conducting research and making science demonstrations. Splashdown into the Pacific Ocean occurred in late afternoon on Thursday, July 24. The historic ASTP mission was accomplished by using existing systems and a new docking module. The Apollo spacecraft was made available when the lunar-landing program was curtailed. Since the command module was built with a docking system designed to work only with U.S. spacecraft, a method of incorporating the new docking system had to be devised. A second important problem was the difference between the spacecraft atmospheres. The Apollo used a pure oxygen atmosphere at about one-third of the atmospheric pressure on earth’s surface; Soyuz used a nitrogen-oxygen mixture at normal atmospheric pressure. To permit 78. The Soviet Soyuz atop a three-stage launch vehicle lifts off July 15, 1975, to begin the joint US-USSR space mission. 79. Overhead view of Soyuz in orbit, photographed from the Apollo spacecraft during the joint mission. The three major components of the Soyuz are the spherical Orbital Module, the bell-shaped Descent Vehicle, and the cylindrical Instrument-Assembly Module from which two solar panels protrude. 80. View of Apollo spacecraft as seen in Earth-orbit from Soyuz. The Command/Service Module and Docking Module are contrasted against a black-sky background and the horizon of the Earth is below. The docking module, 3 meters long and 1.5 meters in diameter (10 feet long and 5 feet in diameter), also solved the problem of incompatible docking mechanisms by carrying the new docking system on one end and a system compatible with Apollo on the other. Prime contractor for Apollo Command Module, Service Module, and Docking Module was Rockwell International. The Apollo hardware is from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Soyuz spacecraft is on loan from the USSR Academy of Sciences.
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