Dec 25 1974
From The Space Library
Tass announced that the flight of the U.S.S.R.'s Salyut 3 orbiting space station, launched 25 June, would soon end, after completion of a six-month program that doubled the flight duration originally planned. During its six months operation the spacecraft had per-formed more than 400 scientific and technical experiments, received more than 8000 control commands from the earth, conducted more than 200 "dynamic operations," conducted 70 TV transmission and 2500 telemetric sessions, fired its thrusters more than 500 000 times, and generated 5000 kw of electricity with its solar panels. A two-man crew, launched 3 July on Soyuz 14, boarded the space station and spent 15 days living and working in space. A second crew, launched 26 Aug. on Soyuz 15, failed in several attempts to dock with the station and returned to the earth after 48 hrs in space. Since that time Salyut 3 had operated in an unmanned automatic mode. The Western press later speculated that the mission was being ended to prevent any interference with the mission of Salyut 4 [see 26 Dec.-9 Feb. 1975]. The retrorockets were fired 24 Jan. 1975 and the station reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean after 213 days in space. (TASS, FBIS-Sov, 26 Dec 74, U1-2; 24 Jan 75, Ul ; GSFC SSR, 28 Feb 75; Soviet Aero, 6 Jan 75, 1)
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