Misión Apolo-Soyuz 1975 Roscosmos

Video from the channel kpl 551 about Apollo–Soyuz, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 4:50. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Roscosmos production, narrated in Russian and featuring testimonies from the participants, about the docking of the Soyuz and the Apollo on 17 July 1975, at an altitude of 225 km.

It recalls that the USSR and the United States agreed in 1972 to develop common systems for rescuing crews, and goes over the technical difficulties: the two spacecraft had different atmospheres (pure oxygen versus air) and their docking systems were not compatible, which led to the design of an androgynous peripheral docking unit.

Soyuz 19, carrying Alexei Leonov and Valeri Kubasov, lifted off from Baikonur on 15 July 1975, and Apollo lifted off from Florida with Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand and Donald Slayton. There was a fault in the colour camera and a cable that got in the way of opening the hatches. The two craft docked twice and Soyuz landed on 21 July. The participants maintain that without that mission neither the Mir-Shuttle programme nor the International Space Station would have existed.