Soyuz 14 was lauched July 3, 1974. It was the first completely successful Russian space station mission and was the first flight to Salyut 3. What was not announced by the Soviets was that Salyut 3 was in fact a cover name for the second military space station from the Almaz project. This first had been Salyut 2, which had failed in orbit.

On board were Pavel Popovich and Yuri Artyukhin. Their callsign for the mission was Berkut (Golden Eagle).

When they docked there was a small leak detected in the docking mechanism, but it was decided it was not serious and the crew were able to enter the space station.

The mission was short by space station standards at just under 16 days. They activated the "remote-sensing equipment" (what the Soviets really meant was surveillance cameras but that wouldn't sound right on a supposedly civilian spacecraft) on July 9. It is thought that targets were laid out at the launch site to test the resolution of the cameras.

There were several false alarms during the mission involving the onboard alarm system. At the end of the mission the crew reloaded the cameras with new film, and placed the exposed film in the return capsule that was attached to the station.

Among other random facts that appeared about the Soyuz 14 mission, it was announced by the Soviets that it had been equiped for a water landing. However, like all nominal missions, it landed on land.

The crew landed 140 km southeast of Dzheskasgan, Kazakhstan on July 19, 1974.


  • http://www.astronautix.com/flights/soyuz14.htm
  • http://www.terra.es/personal/heimdall/eng/soyuz14.htm
  • http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-14.htm
  • http://www.russianspaceweb.com/almaz_ops2.html

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