Interkosmos

For the film, see Interkosmos (film).

Interkosmos (Russian: Интеркосмос) was a Soviet space program, designed to help the Soviet Union's allies with manned and unmanned space missions.

The program included the allied east-European nations of the Warsaw Pact, CoMEcon, and other socialist nations like Afghanistan, Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam. In addition, pro-Soviet non-aligned nations such as India and Syria participated, and even France, despite it being a capitalist nation and part-time US/NATO ally.[1][2]

Following the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, there were even talks between NASA and Intercosmos in the 1970s about a "Shuttle-Salyut" program to fly Space Shuttle missions to a Salyut space station, with later talks in the 1980s even considering flights of the future Soviet shuttles from the Buran programme to a future US space station.[3] While the Shuttle-Salyut program never materialized during the existence of the Soviet Intercosmos program, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union the Shuttle–Mir Program would follow in these footsteps and pave the way to the International Space Station.

Begun in April 1967 with unmanned research satellite missions, the first manned mission occurred in February 1978.[2] Interkosmos missions enabled 14 non-Soviet cosmonauts to participate in Soyuz space flights between 1978 and 1988. The program was responsible for sending into space the first citizen of a country other than the USA or USSR; Vladimír Remek of Czechoslovakia.[1] Interkosmos also resulted in the first black and Hispanic person in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez of Cuba, and the first Asian person in space, Phạm Tuân of Vietnam. Of the countries involved, only Bulgaria sent two cosmonauts in space, though the French spationaut, Jean-Loup Chrétien, flew on two separate flights.

The manned Interkosmos missions also had political goals as a means of strengthening Soviet relations with the Warsaw Pact nations when evidence of discontent in them was raising its head.

Manned missions

  Human spaceflight provider
  participants
Date Prime Backup Country Mission Space station
February 3, 1978
Vladimír Remek[4]
Oldřich Pelčák

Czechoslovakia

Soyuz 28
Salyut 6
June 27, 1978
Mirosław Hermaszewski
Zenon Jankowski

Poland

Soyuz 30
Salyut 6
August 26, 1978
Sigmund Jähn
Eberhard Köllner

East Germany

Soyuz 31
Salyut 6
April 10, 1979
Georgi Ivanov
Aleksandr Aleksandrov

Bulgaria

Soyuz 33
Salyut 6
(Docking failed)
May 26, 1980
Bertalan Farkas
Béla Magyari

Hungary

Soyuz 36
Salyut 6
July 23, 1980
Tuân Pham
Thanh Liem Bui

Vietnam

Soyuz 37
Salyut 6
September 18, 1980
Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez
Jose Lopez Falcon

Cuba

Soyuz 38
Salyut 6
March 23, 1981
Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa
Maidarjavyn Ganzorig

Mongolia

Soyuz 39
Salyut 6
May 14, 1981
Dumitru Prunariu
Dumitru Dediu

Romania

Soyuz 40
Salyut 6
June 24, 1982
Jean-Loup Chrétien
Patrick Baudry

France

Soyuz T-6
Salyut 7
April 2, 1984
Rakesh Sharma
Ravish Malhotra

India

Soyuz T-11
Salyut 7
July 22, 1987
Muhammed Ahmed Faris

Syria

Soyuz TM-3
Mir
July 6, 1988
Aleksandr Aleksandrov

Bulgaria

Soyuz TM-5
Mir
August 29, 1988
Abdul Ahad Mohmand[5]
Mohammad Dauran Ghulam Masum

Afghanistan

Soyuz TM-6
Mir
November 26, 1988
Jean-Loup Chrétien
Michel Tognini

France

Soyuz TM-7
Mir

Unmanned missions

East German postage stamp
A commemorative coin issued in Mongolia

See also

Films

Generally the most films associated with programs are propaganda short TV documents and relations from that era. Except for fictional Interkosmos from 2006, and cooperation document from 2009(in Polish and maybe in other languages too) titled "Lotnicy Kosmonauci"(Aviators-Cosmonauts).[6]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Intercosmos.
  1. 1.0 1.1 Sheehan, Michael (2007). The international politics of space. London: Routledge. pp. 59–61. ISBN 0-415-39917-3.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Burgess, Colin; Hall, Rex (2008). The first Soviet cosmonaut team: their lives, legacy, and historical impact. Berlin: Springer. p. 331. ISBN 0-387-84823-1.
  3. Portree, David S. F. "Mir Hardware Heritage". NASA/Wikisource. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
  4. Roberts, Andrew Lawrence (2005). From Good King Wenceslas to the Good Soldier Švejk: a dictionary of Czech popular culture. Budapest: Central European University Press. p. 141. ISBN 963-7326-26-X.
  5. Bunch, Bryan; Hellemans, Alexander (2004). The history of science and technology: a browser's guide to the great discoveries, inventions, and the people who made them, from the dawn of time to today. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 679. ISBN 0-618-22123-9.
  6. http://www.filmpolski.pl/fp/index.php?film=4224264