We Have Capture: 5 Fun Facts About the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

Aeryn Avilla
Jul 17
12 min read

Updated: Jul 17

On July 17, 1975, a handshake between two pilots ended the nearly 20-year long Space Race, a competition between the United States and Soviet Union for space superiority. For two days, the crewmen shared meals, performed joint science experiments, and held press conferences in an environment of cooperation unfathomable when the Space Race kicked off in late 1957.

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was the first joint space mission carried out by the US and USSR and the first crewed international space mission in history. The Soviet half of the mission was designated Soyuz 19 and was part of the ongoing Soyuz program, which had its first successful manned flight in 1968 [1]. The American half was not part of the Apollo program, which had ended in 1972, but used hardware left over from canceled lunar missions. Their callsigns were simply Apollo and Soyuz.

Artwork of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project — Apollo-Soyuz crew, mission insignia, docking, and launches painted by Bert Winthrop of Rockwell International Space Division, Downey, California *(NASA)*

The American crew consisted of commander Tom Stafford, command module pilot Vance Brand, and docking module pilot Deke Slayton. Stafford was a veteran of three previous missions— Gemini 6A (1965), Gemini 9A (1966), and Apollo 10 (1969)— while Brand and Slayton were rookies, though Slayton was selected as one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959. Alan Bean, Ron Evans, and Jack Lousma were the backup CDR, CMP, and DMP, respectively. The Soviet crew consisted of commander Alexei Leonov, the first person to perform an extra-vehicular activity during Voskhod 2 in March 1965, and flight engineer Valery Kubasov. Anatoly Filipchenko and Nikolai Rukavishnikov, the crew of Soyuz 16, were their backups [2].

Apollo-Soyuz crew — The crew of Apollo-Soyuz. The Americans are wearing orange while the Soviets are wearing green. Stafford and Leonov are standing while Stafford, Brand, and Kubasov sit with a model of their spacecraft docking *(NASA)*

Introduction

Apollo-Soyuz was the first manned international space mission in history and shaped the way human space activities are conducted today. In 1962, after both the US and USSR achieved manned orbital spaceflight, NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh Dryden and Soviet representative on the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Anatoly Blagonravov began discussing plans for American/Soviet cooperation in space biology and medicine [3]. One project specifically involved joint tracking of the American Echo II inflatable communications satellite. The implementation of the Dryden-Blagonravov Agreement, the formalization of their plans, was announced at the United Nations on December 5, 1962. However, President Kennedy's death in 1963, Premier Khrushchev's removal from power in 1964, increasing geopolitical tension between the US and USSR in the latter half of the 1960s, and intensified competition to land men on the moon forced the sidelining of space cooperation efforts.

Signing of the Outer Space Treaty in Washington DC — The Outer Space Treaty, the framework for all international space law and policy, was signed by the UK, US, and USSR in Washington, D.C. on January 27, 1967. As of June 2025, 116 countries are party to the treaty and another 22 countries are signatories. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, Dick Gordon, and Jim Lovell were in attendance. *(National Archives)*

In 1971, encouraged by President Richard Nixon's policy of détente, or easing of tension with the Soviet Union, NASA and the Soviet Academy of Sciences discussed the possibility of a docking between an American spacecraft and a Soviet spacecraft. This could be the docking of an Apollo and a Soyuz, an Apollo with the new Salyut space station, or a Soyuz with the upcoming Skylab space station. NASA contracted North American Rockwell, the builder of the Apollo spacecraft, to develop a docking module while the Soviets designed an androgynous docking system that could be used for future joint missions (more on that later). In April 1972, the nations agreed that their joint mission would involve a docking between an Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft. On May 24, 1972, President Nixon and Premier Alexei Kosygin signed the Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes, the legal framework for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

Illustration of a cutaway view of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project docking — Illustration of a cutaway view of the spacecraft docked in orbit. The American and Soviet crewmen are shaking hands in the Docking Module *(NASA)*

1. Patch Me Through

Modern reproduction of the original Apollo-Soyuz patch design — In 2021, Gene Dorr and Chris Spain worked with AB Emblem to produce a replica of Pinataro's original design *(via AB Emblem)*

The astronauts selected an insignia designed by Jean Pinataro of North American Rockwell from and industry-wide competition. It included the spacecraft docked above Earth, stylized flags of both nations, and the spacecraft and crew names in their respective scripts. When Johnson Space Center Director Chris Kraft submitted the emblem to NASA Headquarters for final approval in May 1974, it was rejected. Despite Kraft's emphasis that it was chosen by the astronauts personally, it was disapproved two more times with critiques that it was "cartoonish" and lacked adequate representation of the international significance of the mission.

Apollo-Soyuz mission insignia — Pinataro's finalized mission insignia *(NASA)*

Pinataro worked closely with the astronauts to re-design the patch, keeping elements from her original insignia. The central image derives, with his permission, from space artist Robert McCall's 1974 painting an Apollo and Soyuz preparing to dock. The sun's rays are not in the formation of a cross, a typical motif in McCall's paintings, since it could be perceived as a religious symbol. The text was rearranged and the flags replaced by small stars along the border— three white against a blue background for the Americans and two gold against a red background for the Soviets.

Robert McCall's Apollo-Soyuz painting — Robert McCall's artwork and the inspiration of the finally-approved Apollo-Soyuz insignia *(Robert McCall via NASA)*

The Soviets had their own mission insignia. The official emblem of Apollo-Soyuz uses a simple color palette and simple imagery, depicting the pair of spacecraft docked in Earth orbit with the spacecraft names. It was chosen by both NASA and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The Soviet crew patch is in the shape of a pentagon, likely to represent the mission's five crewmen, with the Soviet and American flags in the center (sort of ironic since the flags were removed from the American mission patch). The "VII - 1975" along the bottom stands for the date of the mission, July 1975. Leonov and Kubasov wore both the American and Soviet mission patches.

Official Apollo-Soyuz emblem (NASA) | Valery Kubasov inside Soyuz — the pentagon-shaped patch on his right shoulder is the Soviet crew patch (click to enlarge) (NASA)

2. Moscow Nights

While very common today, Apollo-Soyuz was also the first time American astronauts trained in Russia and vice-versa. Meetings between astronauts and cosmonauts in the 1960s were infrequent but not unheard of. Alan Shepard and John Glenn met Gherman Titov in Washington D.C. in 1962. Gemini 4 astronauts Jim McDivitt and Ed White met first man in space Yuri Gagarin at the 1965 Paris Air Show while Gemini 5 astronauts Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad met Voskhod 2 cosmonauts Pavel Belyavev and Alexei Leonov in Greece. In July 1969, before Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman became the first American astronaut to visit the Soviet Union. This began back-and-forth visits to the superpowers by the spacemen: Georgy Beregovoy and Konstantin Feoktistov toured the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Space Center) in October 1969, Neil Armstrong toured the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in May 1970, and Andriyan Nikolayev and Vitaly Sevastyanov visited the US in October. At the same time, an official NASA delegation met with Soviet scientists in Moscow to discuss what would become Apollo-Soyuz.

Cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyayev with astronauts Pete Conrad and Gordon Cooper — Leonov, Conrad, Cooper, and Belyayev at the International Astronautical Congress in Athens, Greece, September 1965 *(NASA)*

The astronauts and cosmonauts and their backups trained together at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas and at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City outside Moscow. Both locations had mockups of the other nation's spacecraft. They reviewed science experiments, sampled each other's space food, and practiced communication protocols in both English and Russian. Flight documents and some controls were labeled in both languages as well. American and Soviet scientists at the Kennedy Space Center conducted tests of Soviet equipment to be used with the docking module since the docking module would launch with Apollo from Florida. Nowadays, NASA astronaut candidates learn Russian as part of basic training.

Alexei Leonov pokes his head through the porthole of a Soyuz orbital module mockup — Leonov pokes his head through the porthole of a Soyuz orbital module mockup at the Manned Spacecraft Center *(NASA)*

3. The End of the Golden Age

In Roman mythology, the god Saturn's reign was a "golden age" of bounty and peace. Decades later, many consider the 1950s through 1970s to be the golden age of space exploration. Apollo-Soyuz was the last launch of the Saturn rocket and the last launch of a manned American crew capsule for 45 years. The Saturn IB rocket was used to launch Apollo 7 in 1968 and Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4 in 1973. It was a two-stage upgraded version of the Saturn I rocket and the predecessor to the Saturn V, which had been retired after launching the Skylab space station in 1973. In 1957, the US Army Ballistic Missile Agency began developing the Saturn family of rockets using technology developed during the Jupiter and Redstone missile programs.

Apollo-Soyuz launch — The final launch of the Saturn rocket *(NASA)*

The S-IB first stage was a cluster of eight small Redstone tanks surrounding a Jupiter liquid oxygen, nicknamed "Cluster's Last Stand", an allusion to the Battle of Little Bighorn, or "Custer's Last Stand". Four tanks held liquid oxygen while the other four held Rocket Propellant-1, a highly-refined kerosene fuel, and the S-IB was powered by eight Rocketdyne H-1 engines producing 1.6 million pounds of thrust. Its second stage, the S-IVB, was similar to the third stage of the Saturn V and was powered by a single liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen J-2 engine producing 200,000 pounds of thrust. The Saturn IB had a low Earth orbit payload capacity of 46,000 pounds and a height of 224 feet (68.3 m).

Apollo-Soyuz Countdown Demonstration Test — Slayton, Stafford, and Brand with their Saturn IB following the Countdown Demonstration Test, a step-by-step launch dress rehearsal, July 3, 1975. Since LC-39B was built for the Saturn V (about 140 ft taller than the Saturn IB), the Saturn IB sat on a pedestal called the "milkstool" *(NASA)*

A total of nine Saturn IB rockets launched from LC-34 and LC-37 on Cape Canaveral and LC-39B at the Kennedy Space Center. The SA-209 rocket, the last remaining flight-configured Saturn IB, is currently on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Rocket Garden.

Apollo lifted off on Friday, July 15, at 3:50 PM EDT from Launch Complex 39B. It was the last launch from the complex until STS-51L Challenger in January 1986 and the last crewed American capsule launch until SpaceX Demo-2 in May 2020. Soyuz 19 launched 7.5 hours earlier from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and was the first televised launch of a Soviet manned mission.

Soyuz 19 launch — Leonov and Kubasov launch aboard Soyuz 19 *(USSR Academy of Sciences via NASA)*

4. Why Can't We Be Friends

10 years after performing the first rendezvous between two manned spacecraft, Gemini 7 and Gemini 6A, Stafford performed the first rendezvous and docking of two manned spacecraft from different countries. On Sunday, July 17, 1975, Apollo "captured" Soyuz. As mentioned earlier, a docking module was designed by North American Rockwell and served as both an airlock and an adapter since the atmospheres of both spacecraft were different and the Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS) docking collar launched onboard Soyuz 19. On one end of the docking module was the same probe-and-drogue docking mechanism used on the Lunar Module and Skylab. This is how Apollo docked. On the other end was another APAS docking collar for Soyuz. Derivatives of Apollo-Soyuz's APAS are still used on the International Space Station.

Drawing of Apollo and Soyuz docked via the docking module — Drawing of *Apollo* and *Soyuz* docked via the docking module airlock/adapter *(NASA)*

At 3:17 PM EDT over the city of Metz in France, Stafford and Leonov opened the hatches of their spacecraft and exchanged the first international handshake in space. The spacemen received a phone call from President Gerald Ford in the White House and were read a statement from Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. Stafford and Slayton joined Leonov and Kubasov aboard Soyuz and exchanged American and Soviet flags, signed International Aeronautical Federation certificates authenticating the first international space docking, and joined two halves of a plaque that launched onboard their respective spacecraft.

Alexei Leonov and Tom Stafford shake hands — Leonov (left) and Stafford shake hands in the docking module *(NASA)*

During the two days Apollo and Soyuz were docked, the astronauts and cosmonauts ate together, conducted televised press conferences and tours of the spacecraft, performed science experiments, and spoke in each other's languages. Since Stafford was from Oklahoma and had a distinct souther accent, Leonov later dubbed his manner of speaking Russian "Oklahomski". They also listened to each other's music— "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by War, "Nezhnost" ("Tenderness" in English), a famous Russian song inspired by Yuri Gagarin's first orbital spaceflight, and a Russian rendition of "Hello Darlin'" ("Privet Radost") specially sung by Conway Twitty himself. Brand and Kubasov also filmed weightlessness demonstrations to be used in classrooms and Stafford presented Leonov with a box of spruce seeds courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture's Forestry Service [4].

Stafford and Slayton holding tubes of borscht labeled as vodka (NASA) | Slayton and Leonov in Soyuz (NASA)

On July 19, the spacecraft undocked for the first time and Apollo positioned itself between Soyuz and the sun to create an artificial solar eclipse, one of 28 astronomy, Earth sciences, life sciences, and applications carried out during Apollo-Soyuz. After docking once again for three hours, the two spacecraft undocked for the last time at 11:26 AM and the crew parted ways until September. Soyuz 19 concluded on July 21 with the first televised landing of a manned Soyuz spacecraft.

Soyuz 19 in space — Soyuz 19 photographed from *Apollo*, July 18, 1975 *(NASA)*

5. Beyond the Sea

When Apollo reentered the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, it was the last ocean landing of a manned spacecraft for 45 years. Immediately after Apollo-Soyuz, the Saturn rocket and Apollo spacecraft were retired and work began to convert Launch Complex 39B and the Vehicle Assembly Building to support the Space Shuttle. No American flew in space during the six years between ASTP and STS-1 Columbia, the maiden voyage of the Space Shuttle in 1981, and no human launched from American soil during the nine years between STS-135 Atlantis, the final Shuttle flight in 2011, and SpaceX Demonstration Mission 2, the first crewed launch of the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2020. The astronauts were recovered off the coast of Hawaii by the USS New Orleans (LPH-11), an Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship. But not without some drama.

Apollo astronauts aboard the USS New Orleans — Welcome reception aboard the *New Orleans (NASA)*

During reentry, the two switches to shut off the reaction control system (RCS) were not flipped. Its hypergolic propellants were vented into the cabin while intaking air from the outside, exposing the astronauts to nitrogen tetroxide fumes. While the RCS was automatically shut off before drogue parachute deployment, later than usual, the crew inhaled enough of the toxic fumes to require medical attention— Brand briefly lost consciousness. Unusually, the astronauts remained inside the capsule until hoisted aboard the New Orleans and spent time in the ship's sick bay after a short welcome reception. The crew was hospitalized in Honolulu, Hawaii for two weeks before flying to Washington, DC to receive their Distinguished Service medals and hold their first post-mission press conference. Stafford was also promoted to Major General in the Air Force. The astronauts and cosmonauts spent two weeks in Russia and two weeks in in the US in September. and October. Apollo is now on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles and the descent module of Soyuz is on display at the RKK Energia Museum in Korolyov, Russia.

The astronauts and cosmonauts of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project at Disney World in Orlando — The astronauts and cosmonauts by Space Mountain at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, February 1975 *(NASA)*

Epilogue

Relations between the US and USSR deteriorated in the late 1970s and the two superpowers nearly dropped the gloves in the '80s. In 1978, the Soviet Union began crewed flights of its Interkosmos program, an effort to help socialist, pro-Soviet, and Warsaw Pact countries achieve spaceflight. 17 non-Soviet cosmonauts, including a few western Europeans, flew onboard Soyuz missions to the Salyut 6, Salyut 7, and Mir space stations. The program sent the first southeast Asian person, the first black and hispanic person, and the first citizen on a country other than the US or USSR into space (Pham Tuân of Vietnam, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez of Cuba, and Vladimír Remek of Czechoslovakia, respectively). NASA had its own equivalent and carried citizens of western European countries, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan announced Space Station Freedom, a collaboration between NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, and the National Space Development Agency of Japan (now Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) to be serviced by the Space Shuttle. At the same time, the Soviets were developing Mir-2. Neither got off the ground, at least not in their proposed iterations. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and financial straits both projects faced opened an opportunity for cooperation. In 1993, the International Space Station program was announced as a joint venture between NASA and its Freedom partners and Roscosmos. Between 1994 and 1998, the Shuttle-Mir prepared both nations for long-duration international space cooperation. To this day, American astronauts launch onboard the Russian Soyuz and Russian cosmonauts launch onboard the American Falcon 9/Dragon to the International Space Station.

Cartoon of the American Apollo-Soyuz crew drawn by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov — Cartoon of the Apollo crew waiting for the arrival of Soyuz 19 drawn by Alexei Leonov *(NASA)*

Author's note: Thanks for reading and be sure to like and share! Follow @spaceflighthistories on Instagram for daily space content.

[1] This mission was Soyuz 3. The first manned Soyuz mission, Soyuz 1, ended in disaster in April 1967.

[2] Soyuz 16 took place in December 1974 and tested the Soyuz 7K-TM hardware to be used for Apollo-Soyuz.

[3] Blagonravov adopted the space dog Tsygan, who with Dezik, became the first dog to fly in space in July 1951. In 1960, Strelka and Belka became the first living creatures successfully recovered from orbital flight. One of Strelka's puppies, a little white furball named Pushinka (Russian for "Fluffy"), was gifted to the Kennedys by Premier Khrushchev.

[4] Apollo 14 command module pilot and former US Forest Service smoke jumper carried hundreds of tree seeds to the moon in 1971.

Bibliography

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Fries, Colin. "In Tune With Détente." NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/history/astp/music.htm
information about "Tenderness" from https://www.pakhmutova.ru/songs/tri_topo.shtml#%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C
Lethbridge, Cliff. "Saturn IB Fact Sheet." Spaceline. https://www.spaceline.org/cape-canaveral-rocket-missile-program/saturn-ib-fact-sheet/
Lovell, Jim and Kluger, Jeffrey. Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., 1994.
Uri, John. "45 Years Ago: Historic Handshake in Space." NASA, July 2020. https://www.nasa.gov/history/45-years-ago-historic-handshake-in-space/
Uri, John. "50 Years Ago: The United States and the Soviet Union Sign a Space Cooperation Agreement." NASA, May 2022. https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-the-united-states-and-the-soviet-union-sign-a-space-cooperation-agreement/
Uri, John. "60 Years Ago: Astronaut Glenn Meets Cosmonaut Titov." NASA, May 2022. https://www.nasa.gov/history/60-years-ago-astronaut-glenn-meets-cosmonaut-titov/

Intellectual Properties I don't own

"Moscow Nights" — written by Mikhail Matusovksy and composed by Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy, 1956

This post was written entirely without the use of AI (sorry HAL).