15 Facts About Soyuz spacecraft

The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraft and was originally built as part of the Soviet crewed lunar programs.

Between the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle and the 2020 demo flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon, the Soyuz spacecraft served as the only means to ferry crew to or from the International Space Station, for which it remains heavily used.

Soyuz spacecraft 3, launched on 26 October 1968, became the program's first successful crewed mission.

The only other flight to suffer a fatal accident, Soyuz spacecraft 11, killed its crew of three when the cabin depressurized just before reentry.

Soyuz spacecraft were used to carry cosmonauts to and from Salyut and later Mir Soviet space stations, and are now used for transport to and from the International Space Station .

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At least one Soyuz spacecraft is docked to ISS at all times for use as an escape craft in the event of an emergency.

Soyuz spacecraft uses a method similar to the United States Apollo command and service module to deorbit itself.

The Soyuz spacecraft is turned engine-forward, and the main engine is fired for deorbiting on the far side of Earth ahead of its planned landing site.

Reentry firing is usually done on the "dawn" side of the Earth, so that the Soyuz spacecraft can be seen by recovery helicopters as it descends in the evening twilight, illuminated by the Sun when it is above the shadow of the Earth.

The Soyuz spacecraft craft is designed to come down on land, usually somewhere in the deserts of Kazakhstan in Central Asia.

Soyuz spacecraft has been the subject of continuous evolution since the early 1960s.

Soyuz spacecraft 7K-L1 was designed to launch a crew from the Earth to circle the Moon, and was the primary hope for a Soviet circumlunar flight.

The Soyuz spacecraft 7K-L3 was designed and developed in parallel to the Soyuz spacecraft 7K-L1, but was scrapped.

Soyuz spacecraft 7K-TM served as a technological bridge to the third generation.

Soyuz spacecraft TMA-M was an upgrade of the baseline Soyuz spacecraft-TMA, using a new computer, digital interior displays, updated docking equipment, and the vehicle's total mass was reduced by 70 kilograms.