The second generation of the Soyuz spacecraft, the ''Soyuz 7K-T'', comprised Soyuz 12 through Soyuz 40 (1973-1981). In the wake of the Soyuz 11 tragedy, the spacecraft was redesigned to accommodate two cosmonauts who would wear pressure suits at all times during launch, docking, undocking, and reentry. The place of the third cosmonaut was taken by extra life-support systems. Finally, the 7K-T, being intended purely as a space station ferry, had no solar panels, instead sporting two large whip antennas in their place. As a result, it relied on batteries which only provided enough power for two days of standalone flight. The idea was that the Soyuz would recharge while docked with a Salyut space station, but in the event of a docking or other mission failure (which ended up happening on several occasions), the crew was forced to power off everything except communications and life support systems until they could reenter. Two test flights of the 7K-T were conducted prior to committing the redesigned Soyuz to a crewed mission. Kosmos 496 was launched on 26 June 1972 and spent a week in space, part of it in powered-down mode. Then on 2 September 1972, an attempted launch of a Zenit reconnaissance satellite failed to orbit due to a malfunction of the vernier engines on the Blok A stage. The existing stock of Soyuz boosters had to be modified to prevent a recurrence of this failure mode on a crewed mission, which delayed the next test until almost a year later when Kosmos 573 launched on 15 June 1973 and spent two days in space. With this done, the way was cleared for the first crewed test, Soyuz 12, in September 1972. In addition, the standalone flights of

Soyuz 13 Soyuz 13 (russian: Союз 13, ''Union 13'') was a December, 1973, Soviet crewed space flight, the second test flight of the redesigned Soyuz 7K-T spacecraft that first flew as Soyuz 12. The spacecraft was specially modified to carry the Ori ...

, Soyuz 16, Soyuz 19, and

Soyuz 22 Soyuz 22 (russian: Союз 22, ''Union 22'') was a September, 1976, Soviet crewed spaceflight.The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-22.htm It was an Earth sciences mission using a modified Soyuz ...

used a variant of the 7K-T with solar panels, and in the case of 13 and 22, special camera apparatus in place of the docking mechanism. A large Orion 2 astrophysical camera for imaging the sky and Earth were used on the former and an MKF-6 Zeiss camera on the latter. Another modification was the ''Soyuz 7K-T/A9'' used for the flights to the military

Almaz The Almaz (russian: Алмаз, lit=Diamond) program was a highly secret Soviet military space station program, begun in the early 1960s. Three crewed military reconnaissance stations were launched between 1973 and 1976: Salyut 2, Salyut 3 ...

space station. This featured the ability to remote control the space station and a new parachute system and other still classified and unknown changes.

Missions

* Soyuz 12 *

* Soyuz 14 *

Soyuz 15 Soyuz 15 (russian: Союз 15, ''Union 15'') was an August, 1974, crewed space flight which was to have been the second mission to the Soviet Union's Salyut 3 space station with presumably military objectives. Launched 26 August 1974, the ...

* Soyuz 17 * Soyuz 18 *

Soyuz 21 Soyuz 21 (russian: Союз 21, ''Union 21'') was a 1976 Soviet crewed mission to the Salyut 5 space station, the first of three flights to the station. The mission's objectives were mainly military in scope, but included other scientific wor ...

* Soyuz 23 * Soyuz 24 * Soyuz 25 * Soyuz 26 * Soyuz 27 * Soyuz 28 * Soyuz 29 * Soyuz 30 *

Soyuz 31 Soyuz 31 (russian: Союз 31, ''Union 31'') was a 1978 Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station.The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-31.htm It was the seventh mission to and sixth s ...

* Soyuz 32 * Soyuz 33 *

Soyuz 34 Soyuz 34 (russian: Союз 34, ''Union 34'') was a 1979 Soviet uncrewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was sent to supply the resident crew a reliable return vehicle after the previous flight, Soyuz 33, suffered an engine failur ...

* Soyuz 35 * Soyuz 36 * Soyuz 37 * Soyuz 38 * Soyuz 39 * Soyuz 40 *

Soyuz 41 Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз (Russian language, Russian and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Soviet Union, Union of Soviet Socialist Republic ...

Uncrewed tests

* Cosmos 496 * Cosmos 573 *

Cosmos 613 Kosmos 613 (russian: Космос 613 meaning ''Cosmos 613'') was a long-duration orbital storage test of the Soyuz Ferry in preparation for long stays attached to a space station. Mission parameters * Spacecraft: Soyuz-7K-T * Mass: 6800 ...

Cosmos 656 Kosmos 656 (russian: Космос 656 meaning ''Cosmos 656'') was an unmanned test of the Soyuz 7K-T, a variant of the Soyuz spacecraft Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 f ...

Soyuz 20 Soyuz 20 (russian: Союз 20, Union 20) was an unmanned spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union. It was a long-duration test of the Soyuz spacecraft that docked with the Salyut 4 space station A space station is a spacecraft capable of s ...

External links

Russia New Russian spaceship will be able to fly to Moon - space corp
*Mir Hardware Heritage ** David S.F. Portree,

', NASA RP-1357, 1995 ** Mir Hardware Heritage (wikisource)
Soyuz 7K-T in Encyclopedia Astronautica

{{Russian human spaceflight programs Crewed spacecraft Soyuz program Vehicles introduced in 1972