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Apollo–Soyuz was the first manned international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975.
Millions of people around the world watched on television as a United States Apollo module docked with a Soviet Union Soyuz capsule. The project,
and its memorable handshake in space, was a symbol of détente between the two superpowers during the Cold War, and it is generally considered to
mark the end of the Space Race, which had begun in 1957 with the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1.
The mission was officially known as the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP; Russian: Экспериментальный полёт «Союз» – «Аполлон» (ЭПАС),
romanized: Eksperimentalniy polyot Soyuz–Apollon (EPAS), lit. 'Experimental flight Apollo–Soyuz', and commonly referred to in the Soviet Union as
Soyuz–Apollo; the Soviets officially designated the mission as Soyuz 19). In contrast, the American vehicle was unnumbered, as it was left over from
the canceled Apollo missions; it was the last Apollo module to fly.
The three American astronauts and two Soviet cosmonauts performed both joint and separate scientific experiments, including an arranged
eclipse of the Sun by the Apollo module to allow instruments on the Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona. The pre-flight work provided
useful engineering experience for later joint American–Russian space flights, such as the Shuttle–Mir program and the International Space Station.
Apollo–Soyuz was the last manned United States spaceflight for nearly six years until the first launch of the Space Shuttle on April 12th, 1981,
and the last manned United States spaceflight in a space capsule until Crew Dragon Demo-2 in May 2020.
The Soyuz and Apollo flights launched within seven-and-a-half hours of each other on July 15th, 1975, and docked on July 17th, 1975. Three hours
later, the two mission commanders, Stafford and Leonov, exchanged the first international handshake in space through the open hatch of the Soyuz.
NASA had calculated that the historic handshake would have taken place over the British seaside resort of Bognor Regis, but a delay resulted in its
occurrence being over the city of Metz in France. During the first crew exchange, the crews were read a statement from Soviet Premier Leonid
Brezhnev, and received a phone call from U.S. President Gerald Ford.
While the two ships were docked, the three Americans and two Soviets conducted joint scientific experiments, exchanged flags and gifts
(including tree seeds which were later planted in the two countries), signed certificates, visited each other's ships, ate together, and conversed
in each other's languages. (Because of Stafford's pronounced drawl when speaking Russian, Leonov later joked that there were three languages
spoken on the mission: Russian, English, and "Oklahomski".) There were also docking and redocking maneuvers, during which the two spacecraft
reversed roles and the Soyuz became the "active" ship.
American scientists developed four of the experiments performed during the mission. Embryologist Jane Oppenheimer analyzed the effects
of weightlessness on fish eggs at various stages of development.
After 44 hours together, the two ships separated, and maneuvered to use the Apollo to create an artificial solar eclipse to allow the crew of
the Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona. Another brief docking was made before the ships went their separate ways. The Soviets
remained in space for two more days, and the Americans for five, during which the Apollo crew also conducted Earth observation experiments.
The mission was considered a great success, both technically and as a public-relations exercise for both nations. The only serious problem
was during reentry and splashdown of the Apollo craft, during which the crew were accidentally exposed to toxic hydrazine and nitrogen
tetroxide fumes, caused by unignited reaction control system (RCS) hypergolic propellants venting from the spacecraft and reentering a cabin air
intake. The RCS was inadvertently left on during descent, and the toxic fumes were sucked into the spacecraft as it drew in outside air. Brand
briefly lost consciousness, while Stafford retrieved emergency oxygen masks, put one on Brand, and gave one to Slayton. The three astronauts
were hospitalized for two weeks in Honolulu, Hawaii. Brand took responsibility for the mishap; because of high noise levels in the cabin
during reentry, he believes he was unable to hear Stafford call off one item of the reentry checklist, the closure of two switches which would have
automatically shut off the RCS and begun drogue parachute deployment. These procedures were manually performed later than usual, allowing
the ingestion of the propellant fumes through the ventilation system.
The ASTP was the final flight of an Apollo spacecraft. Immediately after the launch of the Apollo spacecraft, preparations began to convert
LC-39B and the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center for use by the Space Shuttle, the United States' next crewed spacecraft
program. Launch LC-39A had already been closed after the launch of Skylab.
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