Salyut 1 (DOS-1), in Russian: Салют-1, was the first space station launched into low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971.
The Salyut program followed this with five more successful launches of seven more stations. The final module of the program, Zvezda (DOS-8), became the core of the Russian segment of the International Space Station and remains in orbit today.
Salyut 1 was modified from one of the Almaz airframes, and was made out of five components: a transfer compartment, a main compartment, two auxiliary compartments, and the Orion 1 Space Observatory.
Salyut 1 was visited by Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 11. The hard-docking of Soyuz 10 failed and the crew had to abort this mission. The Soyuz 11 crew achieved successful hard docking and performed experiments in Salyut 1 for 23 days. However, they were killed by asphyxia caused by failure of a valve just prior to Earth reentry, and are the only known people to have died above the Kármán line. Salyut 1's mission was later terminated, and it burned up on reentry into Earth's atmosphere on October 11, 1971.
More information: Space
Salyut 1 originated as a modification of the Soviet military's Almaz space station program that was then in development.
After the landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon in July 1969, the Soviets began shifting the primary emphasis of their crewed space program to orbiting space stations, with a possible lunar landing later in the 1970s if the N-1 rocket became flight-worthy.
Leonid Brezhnev cancelled the lunar landing program in 1974 after four catastrophic N-1 launch failures. One other motivation for the space station program was a desire to one-up the US Skylab program then in development. The basic structure of Salyut 1 was adapted from the Almaz with a few modifications and would form the basis of all Soviet space stations through Mir.
Civilian Soviet space stations were internally referred to as DOS, the Russian acronym for Long-duration orbital station, although publicly, the Salyut name was used for the first six DOS stations (Mir was internally known as DOS-7). Several military experiments were nonetheless carried on Salyut 1, including the OD-4 optical visual ranger, the Orion ultraviolet instrument for characterizing rocket exhaust plumes, and the highly classified Svinets radiometer.
Construction of Salyut 1 began in early 1970, and after nearly a year it was shipped to the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Some remaining assembly had yet to be done, and this was completed at the launch centre. The Salyut programme was managed by Kerim Kerimov, chairman of the state commission for Soyuz missions.
Launch was planned for April 12, 1971 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight on Vostok 1, but technical problems delayed it until April 19.
At launch, the announced purpose of Salyut was to test the elements of the systems of a space station and to conduct scientific research and experiments. The craft was described as being 20 m in length, 4 m in maximum diameter, and 99 m3 in interior space with an on-orbit dry mass of 18,425 kg. Of its several compartments, three were pressurized (100 m³ total), and two could be entered by the crew.
Salyut 1 was moved to a higher orbit in July-August 1971 to ensure that it would not be destroyed prematurely through orbital decay. In the meantime, Soyuz capsules were being substantially redesigned to allow pressure suits to be worn during launch, docking manoeuvres, and re-entry.
The Soyuz redesign effort took too long however, and by September, Salyut 1 was running out of fuel. It was decided to conclude the station's mission and on October 11, the main engines were fired for a deorbit manoeuvre. After 175 days, the world's first space station burned up over the Pacific Ocean.
Pravda (October 26, 1971) reported that 75% of Salyut 1's studies were carried out by optical means and 20% by radio-technical means, while the remainder involved magneto metrical, gravitational, or other measurements. Synoptic readings were taken in both the visible and invisible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
More information: NASA
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