Soyuz Programme - Soyuz Spacecraft

Soyuz Spacecraft

The basic Soyuz spacecraft design was the basis for many projects, many of which never came to light. Its earliest form was intended to travel to the moon without employing a huge booster like the Saturn V or the Soviet N-1 by repeatedly docking with upper stages that had been put in orbit using the same rocket as the Soyuz. This and the initial civilian designs were done under the Soviet Chief Designer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, who did not live to see the craft take flight. Several military derivatives took precedence in the Soviet design process, though they never came to pass.

A Soyuz spacecraft consists of three parts (from front to back):

• a spheroid orbital module
• a small aerodynamic reentry module
• a cylindrical service module with solar panels attached

There are several variants of the Soyuz spacecraft, including:

• Soyuz A 7K-9K-11K circumlunar complex proposal(1963)
• Soyuz 7K-OK (1967-1971)
  • Soyuz 7K-L1 Zond (1967-1970)
  • Soyuz 7K-L3 LOK
  • Soyuz 7K-OKS (1971)
    • Soyuz 7K-T or "ferry" (1973-1981)
    • Soyuz 7K-TM (1975-1976)
• Military Soyuz (7K-P, 7K-PPK, R, 7K-VI Zvezda, and OIS)
• Soyuz-T (1976-1986)
• Soyuz-TM (1986-2003)
• Soyuz-TMA (2003-.... )
• Soyuz-TMA-M (2010/.... )
• Soyuz-ACTS (2012/....)