When you think about space stations, which ones come to mind first? You might think Skylab, the International Space Station (ISS), or maybe Russia’s Mir. But before any of those took to the heavens, ...

The Salyut program was the Soviet Union’s seven answers to Skylab. The first Salyut launched in 1971, the last in 1982. The early models were all monolithically constructed and launched in a single ...

When the Space Race kicked off in earnest in the 1950s, in some ways it was hard to pin down where sci-fi began and reality ended. As the first artificial satellites began zipping around the Earth, ...

Hidden inside the Soviet Salyut program was a fully armed orbital weapons platform, and the story of how it was built, fired, and buried stayed locked behind the Iron Curtain for decades. This is the ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. On July 29, 1982, the Salyut 6 space station fell out of space and safely burned up in Earth's atmosphere along the way.Salyut 6 ...

Back when the space race was at its peak, Russia was kicking some serious American butt. Even if, in the end, the U.S. managed to get ahead by putting humans on the Moon, it was the Russians who first ...

On Sept. 29, 1977, the Salyut 6 space station launched into orbit. This was the eighth space station the Soviet Union launched under its Salyut program and the first second-generation Salyut space ...

On July 29, 1982, the Salyut 6 space station fell out of space and safely burned up in Earth's atmosphere along the way. Salyut 6 was the eighth space station the Soviet Union had built for its Salyut ...