Until late 1969 it appeared that the USSR was also working toward landing cosmonauts on the moon. In Nov., 1968, a Soviet cosmonaut in Soyuz 3 participated in an automated rendezvous and manual approach sequence with the crewless Soyuz 2. Soyuz 4 and 5 docked in space in Jan., 1969, and two cosmonauts transferred from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4; it was the first transfer of crew members in space from separately launched vehicles. But in July, 1969, the rocket that was to power the lunar mission exploded, destroying an entire launch complex, and the USSR abandoned the goal of human lunar exploration to concentrate on orbital flights. The program suffered a further setback in June, 1971, when Soyuz 11 accidentally depressurized during reentry, killing all three cosmonauts. In July, 1975, the United States and the USSR carried out the first internationally crewed spaceflight, when an Apollo and a Soyuz spacecraft docked while in earth orbit. Later Soyuz spacecraft have been used to ferry cosmonauts to and from Salyut and Mir.
Online Encyclopedia Blog For Kid's Research In Sciences, Health, Environment and Technology
POPULAR POSTS
-
The distance between the sun and the earth varies because the earth travels in an elliptical rather than circular orbit. The distance is r...
-
Galaxy, a massive ensemble of hundreds of millions of stars, all gravitationally interacting, and orbiting about a common center. Astronomer...
-
Ecliptic, in astronomy, the apparent great-circle annual path of the sun in the celestial sphere , as seen from the earth . It is so named b...