Salyut 7 Space Station

Salyut 7 was one of the "second generation" Soviet manned space stations. Like its predecessor, Salyut 6, Salyut 7 had two axial docking ports, front and rear. For the first time this afforded the possibilty of using supply ferries (i.e., an unmanned Soyuz variant called "Progress") to bring supplies to the orbiting space station crew by docking at one port while a crew return vehicle (i.e., the Soyuz manned spacecraft) remained docked at the other port. Neither earlier Soviet space stations nor the American Skylab had the capabilty to be resupplied in this way. Using unmanned re-supply ferries opened up the possibility for space station crews to spend much longer periods in orbit.


Launched in 1982 Salyut 7 was occupied virtually continually by rotating crews of cosmonauts until 1986-7, when it was replaced by the Mir space station. Like all Soviet manned spacestations and spacestation modules, Salyut 7 was placed in orbit by a Proton rocket.

This model depicts Salyut 7 in its early days, before additional solar panels were added. Docked at one end is a Soyuz-T manned spacecraft and at the opposite docking port is a Progress unmanned supply ship. The model was entirely scratchbuilt, although the Soyuz-T and Progress are based on polyester resin casts made from molds taken off Revell's 1/96 Soyuz from the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project kit. Two cosmonauts are depicted

making a spacewalk.