Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing
87 km northeast of Arkalyk.
This mission was the first joint
U.S.Soviet space flight, and the last flight of an Apollo spacecraft. Its
primary purpose was as a symbol of the policy of détente that the two
superpowers were pursuing at the time, and marked the end of the Space Race
between them that began in 1957.
The docking with the US Apollo
spacecraft
ASTP occured on July 17, 1975.
The docking time was 52 hours. It was the first docking of two spacecrafts,
launched from different nations. The crewmembers rotated between both
spacecrafts and perfomed material experiments. The mission included both joint
and separate scientific experiments (including an engineered eclipse of the Sun
by Apollo to allow Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona), and provided
useful engineering experience for future joint USRussian space
flights.
After the separation a second short-time docking with Soyuz 19
as the active part was done but there were no more crew transfers. After the
final separating the crew performed several experiments including solar and
earth photography.
The landing was without any problems, only 6 km far
from its aim point.