The Skylab components on display were presented to the museum by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
77. Artist conception of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project rendezvous.
On May 24, 1972, President Richard Nixon and Aleksey Kosygin, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, signed an agreement “concerning cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.” The signing represented a formal endorsement of negotiations that had been held between the two nations over several years. The agreement established the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) to develop and fly a standardized docking system “to enhance the safety of manned flight in space and to provide the opportunity for conducting joint scientific missions in the future.”
On July 15, 1975, the afternoon countdown for the Soviet launch was completed and Soyuz lifted off from the Baykonur complex near Tyuratum in Central Asia, some 3200 kilometers (2000 miles) southeast of Moscow. Soyuz carried cosmonauts Alexey Leonov and Valeriy Kubasov.
Taking advantage of Apollo’s larger fuel supply for maneuvering, Apollo followed Soyuz into orbit 7½ hours later. Apollo was launched atop a Saturn 1B from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
After careful maneuvering, the two craft linked up around noon on July 18. Some 225 kilometers (140 miles) above Earth, the astronauts and cosmonauts visited each other’s craft, performed joint experiments, and made further tests of the new docking system.
Following the undocking Saturday, Apollo fired its engines briefly and moved away from Soyuz. Soyuz descended from orbit and landed in the south-central USSR early Monday morning, July 21.
Astronauts Stafford, Slayton, and Brand remained in orbit conducting research and making science demonstrations. Splashdown into the Pacific Ocean occurred in late afternoon on Thursday, July 24.