Misión Apolo Soyuz 1975 - Documental de la NASA

Video from the channel The Federal File about Apollo–Soyuz, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 29:05. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.

NASA film about the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the July 1975 mission in which a US Apollo spacecraft and a Soviet Soyuz docked in Earth orbit, about 140 miles above the Atlantic, near Portugal. It brings together footage of the launches, of the Houston and Moscow control centres and of the joint training, as well as the televised images from the two spacecraft during the two days of joint flight: crew members moving between the two craft, the ceremonies and the experiments.

The footage comes from the mission itself and from its preparation. Soyuz lifts off from Baikonur, in Kazakhstan, and hours later Apollo lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, on the last flight of the Apollo programme. Also shown are the docking, the meeting between astronauts and cosmonauts, Soyuz's landing in Central Asia under a parachute, and Apollo's splashdown in the Pacific, west of Hawaii.

The mission was the culmination of more than three years of preparation following the space agreement signed in Moscow in 1972. On the Soviet side flew Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space in 1965, and Valeri Kubasov. On the US side flew Thomas Stafford, commander of Apollo 10, Vance Brand, on his first flight, and Deke Slayton, one of the seven original Mercury astronauts. The technical teams were led by Glynn Lunney and Konstantin Bushuyev, with joint groups for communications, life support, planning, control and mechanical design. The central goal was to test a compatible docking system, with a common interface, as a possible standard for future rescues. During the flight a furnace for alloys was tested, a solar eclipse was simulated with Apollo blocking the Sun, and the oxygen and nitrogen of the upper atmosphere were measured by ultraviolet absorption. Afterwards, Apollo remained in orbit to complete its 27 experiments, including one with killifish, extreme ultraviolet observations and a measurement of gravity variations using the already-jettisoned docking module. During reentry, attitude-thruster gases entered the capsule. The crew corrected the problem and spent a few days hospitalised in Hawaii. The film ends by presenting the Space Shuttle and the European Spacelab as a continuation of this cooperation.