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Creation Date
3-23-1973
Description
March 23, 1973
WASHINGTON, D. C. – The U. S. flight crew for the joint U. S. – USSR Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) are shown with members of the USSR ASTP working group during a visit to Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA Administrator. Left to right – Cosmonauts Major General Vladimir Shatalov, Aleksey S. Yeliseyev, and the U. S. flight crew Thomas P. Stafford, Commander; Donald K. Slayton, Docking Pilot; Vance D. Brand, Command Module Pilot. The Soviets will shortly announce their ASTP flight crew members. Target launch date for the mission is July 15, 1975. The Soyuz spacecraft will be launched first from the Soviet Union, and the Apollo launch from the Kennedy Center, Fla. will follow. Apollo will have five launch windows the first of which will begin 7 ½ hours after the Soyuz liftoff. The American and Soviet crews will visit one another’s spacecraft while the Soyuz and Apollo are docked in Earth orbit for a maximum period of two days. The mission is designed to test equipment and techniques that will establish international crew rescue capability in space, as well as permit future cooperative scientific missions.
Keywords
ASTP, Apollo, Soyuz, Apolloy Soyuz Test Project