NASA FILM "THE MISSION OF APOLLO-SOYUZ" RENDEZVOUS IN SPACE 67274

Video from the channel PeriscopeFilm about Apollo–Soyuz, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 29:18. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

NASA film produced after the mission reviewing the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project of July 1975: the first joint spaceflight by the United States and the Soviet Union, in which an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz docked in Earth orbit at about 140 miles (around 225 km) altitude, over the Atlantic near Portugal. It combines footage from both countries, communications with the Houston and Moscow control centres, and scenes aboard the two spacecraft.

The mission was the culmination of more than three years of preparation under the space agreement signed in Moscow in 1972 by the heads of state of both countries. Joint teams, led by Glynn Lunney and Konstantin Bushuyev, worked in five areas: communications and tracking, life support and crew transfer, mission planning, control and guidance, and mechanical design. The last of these produced the first universal docking system: each country built its own half, but the connecting interface was a single design. It was also the last flight of an Apollo spacecraft, which would give way to the Space Shuttle.

On 15 July, Soyuz lifted off first from Baikonur, and hours later Apollo lifted off from launch pad B at the Kennedy Space Center. The Soviet crew was made up of Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space with Voskhod 2 in 1965, and Valeri Kubasov, a veteran of Soyuz 6. The American crew comprised Thomas Stafford, former commander of Apollo 10; Donald "Deke" Slayton, one of the seven original Mercury astronauts, who did not fly until his return to active duty in 1972, and Vance Brand, on his first flight. After about 40 hours of manoeuvres, the spacecraft docked. The crews visited each other, exchanged flags, signed certificates for the International Aeronautical Federation, and joined the two halves of a commemorative medal. Among the joint experiments were a furnace for alloys, an artificial solar eclipse in which Apollo blocked the Sun to photograph the corona, a second docking, and the measurement by ultraviolet absorption of the upper atmosphere. Soyuz landed in Central Asia by parachute and retrorockets. Apollo remained in orbit four more days with its 27 experiments and splashed down in the Pacific, west of Hawaii. During reentry, attitude-thruster gases entered the cabin; the crew spent a few days under observation in a hospital in Hawaii. The film ends by looking ahead to the Space Shuttle and the European Spacelab.