I'm John Bachelors, David Livingston, Dr. Space of the Space Show, my colleague

and co-pilot, and we're speaking.

It's great fun to talk to Antoli Zach, the historian of Russ Cosmos, that in English tells us a story we didn't have at the time, didn't have for many years, might still not have all of it. But we're talking about preparation

for the Apollo Soyuz de-Tant mission of 1975. It's now August of 74, the cover name of this pilotless craft to test the new upgrades for the

Soyuz system is Cosmos 672.

It has a circular orbit, learned from Anatole and that and it was much higher than the

Apollo Soyuz flight was to have an orbit so tracking it the US was puzzled.

However, eventually they figured out that it lowered itself to the correct

altitude for the Apollo Soyuz fight and they would have guessed. What did they learn from

Cosmos 672 Anatole? We have a few

a few minutes.

So essentially in the end of this mission, the second one finally kind of did a dress rehearsal.

It's certified all the new systems which were developed for the

joint flight and for this particular upgrade of Soyuz. So after this, when it successfully landed,

unlike the first mission which had serious problems. After this one, when it was successfully landed,

unlike the first mission, which had serious problem

during landing, this one essentially was certifying

all the hardware, including docking mechanism,

the radio systems and life support system

for the flight of the crew.

So they did another dress rehearsal later aboard Soyuz 16 mission

before they did Soyuz 19 launch to dock with the Apollo in 1975.

...