Orbital manned station (OPS=Orbital'naja pilotiruemaja stancija) SALYUT-3 was designed in the Central Design Bureau of Machine Building (town Reutov Moscow Region) headed by Vladimir N.Chelomey in 1964-1973 years in the framework of the ALMAZ program. Originally the station had to fly together with the heavy ferry vehicle called TKS (=Transportnyj korabl' snabzhenija), but then that heavy spaceship was postponed and appeared once more as a part of the SALYUT program and a base for the MIR modules design. Crews were delivering to the station by the SOYUZ transport spaceships.
Length of ALMAZ/SALYUT is 11.61 meters, maximal diameter - 4.15 meters, useful volume - 47 cub.meters.
The main task of the crew of two Soviet Air Force cosmonauts was to conduct the photo reconnaissance work by the mean of the telescopic lenses camera and TV-system. The film would be processed aboard, then the most interesting pictures were transmitting to Earth, and the rest film would be returned by the mean of the one of two re-entry capsules aboard. Also, the crews were able to perform some physical and medical experiments.
The early ALMAZ projects included also re-entry capsule from the TKS spaceship, which would mount to the OPS small diameter cylinder compartment. This would let to launch the station already manned. Later this capsule was canceled.
SALYUT-3 was launched on June 25, 1973. In that summer crew of Pavel Popovich and Yuri Artyukhin worked aboard during 15 days
Submitted by Dmitry Pieson