Space Station History

NASA dates the first proposal for a space station back to 1869, when a U.S. science fiction writer described an orbiting "Brick Moon" that would navigate ships at sea. At the turn of the century, Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky envisioned a cylindrical living quarters that would rotate to provide artificial gravity. In 1923, Romanian Hermann Oberth was the first to coin the term "space station" for his proposal of a wheel-like structure that would help astronauts go to the moon or Mars. Shortly after WWII, German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun envisioned a spinning wheel-like station. And in 1971 the dreams and ideas of these great thinkers became a reality when Salyut 1 was placed into orbit.

Salyut Space Stations (Russian)

Beginning in 1971 and lasting until 1991, the Soviet Union placed seven Salyut space stations in orbit. These step stone space stations paved the way for the successful Mir and future International Space Station. The Salyut missions have been deemed very important indeed with people comparing them as equal in value to the space shuttle missions. While there were seven Salyut space stations flown under the dame program each station was radically different from the other. The program served multiple tasks for the former Soviet Union and shifted from the military to the scientific base. This step toward science led the way for the Mir space station and to the development of the Intercosmos program (this program allowed scientist from other countries to fly aboard the Russian outposts).

Salyut 1:

In April of 1971, Salyut 1 was placed in orbit and was occupied from June 6th to 29th (24 day mission). The Salyut 1 was a simple station with an open-loop life support system and was launched fully assembled. It had three main components: a service/engine module, an airlock/transfer module, and a docking unit. Four days after the station launch, Soyuz 9 took off to dock with Salyut 1, but the hatch failed to open and Soyuz 9 had to return to Earth. Next came the Soyuz 10 crew successfully docked with the station and worked in the lab for nearly three weeks. The crew studied astronomy, biology, and Earth observation. When the crew left it would be one of the last things they saw, as tragically there Soyuz vehicle lost its oxygen pressure and they sadly died in space. As a result, all subsequent Soyuz have worn pressure suits during takeoff and re-entry.

Salyut 2:

In April 3, 1973, Salyut 2 was placed in orbit and a week later the station developed a severe tumbling motion. Thereafter control was lost from the station and it prevented it from becoming occupied and it finally burned through the atmosphere after being in orbit for two months.

Salyut 3 (ALMAZ project):

This part of the Salyut project involved the military aspect with the incorporation of a large optical telescope as part of the design. The optical telescope was used for reconnaissance of military installations. Salyut 3 had two Soviet Air Force cosmonauts take reconnaissance by using telescopic lenses camera and a television system. The photos were developed in space and the most interesting were transmitted back to Earth and the remaining pictures were to return by a re-entry capsule. The two member crew also performed some physical and medical experiments. There were a total of two missions to Salyut 3, with Soyuz 14 mission lasting 15 days with its main mission to check out the station and make observations of military points of interest. The second mission, Soyuz 15, was aborted due to problems with docking with the station.

Salyut 4:

The Salyut 4 mission was launched in December of 1974 with its primary mission devoted mostly to civilian objectives. The Salyut 4 was very similar to the Salyut 1 mission, except Salyut 4 had three more solar arrays. Salyut 4 was designed to stay in orbit for up to 60 days and it had an extensive scientific complement. There were two missions to Salyut 4 with Soyuz 17 taking off in January 1975 and staying for 29 days. The second mission to Soyuz had to abort its takeoff midway through flight and the crew was recovered in the western portion of the USSR. Soyuz 19 was launched on May 24, 1975 and the mission lasted for 63 days with a variety of experiments being completed.

Salyut 5:

The station was launched in June of 1976 and featured a mixture of scientific and military goals. It had the characteristics of the ALMAZ project, which made it nearly identical to Salyut 3. In July of 1976, Soyuz 21 was launched to the Salyut 5 station and had a 49 day mission. The second Soyuz tried to dock with Salyut 5, but could not and had to return home. The third Soyuz mission was launched in February of 1977 and lasted for 18 days.

Salyut 6:

Was lofted into orbit in September 29, 1977 and was occupied from December 6, 1977 to May 22, 1981. This station was the second generation of the FSU space stations and was equipped with two docking modules. This made it possible for short-term and long-term crew missions and provided for logistics resupply by using automated vehicles. The station was manned for a total of 676 days. There were five long duration missions that ran for 96, 240, 175, 185, and 74 days, respectively. There were also several short-term durations and nine international missions, under the Interkosmos program.

Salyut 7:

Reached the heavens in April of 1982 and had its main objective of continuing testing of the behavior of large station complexes by the use of the TKS logistics vehicles from the ALMAZ project. The mission had nine missions and international flights under the Interkosmos program. The station was in orbit for 9 years and was occupied for 800 days. During the first mission of the Mir, cosmonauts transferred equipment to the newer space station. After this was completed the station was lofted to a higher orbit were it underwent natural decay and later re-entered the atmosphere in February of 1991.

Skylab

The United Stations decided to join in on the space station idea with the launch of Skylab on May 14, 1973. Skylab was placed into orbit by a modified Saturn V that had a "dry" third stage. Skylab made of string of early hardships that started with the lose of its meteoroid shield and ending with the lose of one of its solar arrays that was torn from its mount. For ten days ground controllers worked around the clock to find solutions to these problems. And finally the first Skylab 2 crew arrived and fixed all the problems to allow scientific operations to continue, the crew was composed of Charles Conrad, Paul J. Weitz, and Joesph Kerwin and they lasted for 28 days. Next came the Skylab 3 crew of Alan L. Bean, Jack R. Lousma, and Owen Gartiott and they were replaced 59 days later by the crew of Skylab 4 with Gerald P. Carr, William R. Pogue, and Edward Gibson with a total of 84 days. The three crews were launched aboard Saturn IB rockets on May 25th, July 28th, and November 16th of 1973. The goals of Skylab was to prove that humans could live and work in space for long-term durations and to expand knowledge about solar astronomy. Skylab had more than 300 scientific and technical experiments, which included: medical experiments on humans' adaptability to zero gravity, solar observation, and Earth resources experiments. It only saw three, three-man, crews before it was abandoned in 1974 (after logging 171 days of occupied flight) and left to make its fiery plunge back to the Earth five years late. On that date in July 11, 1979. it killed a cow as pieces fell over the skies of Western Australia. After the Skylab 4 crew splash downed on February 8, 1974, mission control continued some experiments before they shut the station down.

Mir (Russian)

Russian next moved up its focus on long duration flights with launch of the first module of its next space station the Mir (means "peace") on February 20, 1986. Since that time the Mir have remained in orbit and manned, except for two brief periods. The Mir has become one of the most valuable keys in all of manned space flight, the Mir has proved long duration flights are possible and has been instrumental for the birth of the International Space Station. The Mir was Russia's third generation space station, which grew from the earlier successful Salyut missions. During 1994-1995, Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov broke the record for human duration in space, with a total of 438 days in orbit. Russia continued to add components onto the Mir, until the last one of the seven modules, named Priroda, arrived in 1996. The Mir complex consists of the Mir core, Kvant, Kvant 2, Kristall, Spektr, Priroda, and several docking ports. The Mir core contains the main operations and living quarters for the cosmonauts. Kvant 1 houses the astrophysics research laboratory, while Kvant 2 is the scientific research laboratory and airlock module. The Kvant 2 gives the Mir the best view of earth, biotechnology experiments are conducted there, and EVA's (extravehicular activity) are also possible. The Kristall module contains the shuttle docking port and it contains a small greenhouse and semiconductor experiments. Spektr contains atmospheric research surface studies equipment, but has been sealed of. The Priroda contains a number of radiometers, spectrometers, and radar for data gathering. With Norm Thagard, U.S. astronauts started to live aboard the Mir as part of Phase I of the ISS. Thagard was dropped of by STS-71 and rode aboard the Mir for 115 days before being replaced by Shannon Lucid. John Blaha took over for Shannon Lucid, after her 188 day stay, and Shannon returned back on STS-79. On January 12, 1996, John Blaha was retired by Jerry Linenger, who faced a fire, a near collision, and several breakdowns aboard the Mir. On May 17, 1997, Micheal Foale refreshed Linenger's position and began his stint of Mir and encounter a near death experience. When on June 25,1997, the Russian space outpost collided with a Soyuz resupply ship that almost took the lives of its Russian-American crew. The Mir space station was punctured in its Spektr module in the collision and has seen then been sealed from the rest of the station. Since this time the Mir has undergo extensive repairs and has been running perfectly. David Wolf next replaced Micheal Foale and had to help piece Mir back together. Andrew Thomas came on January 25, 1998 to replace David Wolf and to begin the last leg of the American lodgings aboard Mir. In June of 1998, the crew of STS-91 came to pick-up Andrew Thomas and dock with the Mir for one last time. The Mir has two types of logistics craft that are used to transport cargo and crew. The Soyuz-TM are used to launch crew and cargo to the space outpost and are also used for crew re-entry vehicles. Progress-M spacecraft are used just to resupply Mir and are used as giant garbage cans, but once they undock they burn up in the atmosphere. Soon the great Russian outpost will see its sunset as the International Space Station (ISS) replaces it in orbit, but this space outpost has become the jewel of the Russian Space Agency.

International Space Station (ISS)

A similar space station was envisioned way back in the 1960's and the current ISS project was brought up by President Ronald Reagan stating the goal in his State of the Union address to the nation in 1984. In that same year, NASA announced a new program to establish a permanently manned space station, named Freedom. Changes have been made to the original designed station and budget cuts have also impacted the project. Now ten years later the project was combined with the Russian plans for the Mir 2 project to produce the International Space Station, under the leadership of NASA. In additional fifteen other nations, including those of the European Space Agency (ESA), Canada, and Japan have decided to get involved to contribute to the scientific space outpost by adding scientific modules and other devices. When everything is completed the ISS will house up to six crew members at a time, have at least eight scientific pressurized laboratories, as well as having extensive facilities for outside mounted experiments. The ISS has become the largest and most complex human scientific endeavor to promote peace and understanding, while at the same time receiving valuable scientific data for everyone on Earth.