Qualla: Apollo-Soyuz

Apollo-Soyuz: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Danapit, CC BY-SA 4.0. On July 17, 1975, two hundred kilometers above the Atlantic Ocean, an Apollo command module nudged its docking probe into a Soyuz orbital module's receiving cone. Three hours later, American astronaut Thomas Stafford floated through the hatch and clasped hands with Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. The handshake was broadcast live to millions. For a few days, the Cold War had a seam running through it in low Earth orbit -- and sunlight was leaking in from both sides.

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Image: Danapit | CC BY-SA 4.0

Apollo-Soyuz: How Enemies Learned to Fly Together

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Struck by Robbins Company for NASA, Public domain. The road to Apollo-Soyuz began not in space but in diplomacy. By the early 1970s, the policy of detente was thawing relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. In May 1972, President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin signed an agreement on cooperation ...

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Image: Struck by Robbins Company for NASA | Public domain

Apollo-Soyuz: Five Men, Two Languages, One Orbit

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. The American crew consisted of commander Thomas P. Stafford, a veteran of Gemini 6, Gemini 9, and Apollo 10; command module pilot Vance D. Brand, on his first spaceflight; and docking module pilot Deke Slayton, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts who had been grounded fo...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Apollo-Soyuz: Rendezvous Over the Atlantic

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. Soyuz 19 launched first, lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:20 UTC on July 15, 1975. Seven and a half hours later, the Apollo spacecraft followed from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B. It was the last Saturn rocket to fly -- a leftover IB varian...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Apollo-Soyuz: A Near-Fatal Homecoming

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. Apollo splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1975, near Hawaii -- but the landing nearly killed its crew. During descent, the reaction control system was inadvertently left active, and when the capsule's parachutes deployed, toxic nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer fumes from t...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Apollo-Soyuz: The Last Apollo, and What Came After

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bluesnote, CC BY-SA 4.0. Apollo-Soyuz was the final flight of the Apollo program and the last crewed American spaceflight for nearly six years, until the Space Shuttle Columbia launched on April 12, 1981. The mission's legacy extended far beyond its 9 days and 7 hours in space. The technical protocols de...

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Image: Bluesnote | CC BY-SA 4.0