salyut 3

font size="+1">Salyut 3
olspan="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FFDEAD"\|Mission Insignia
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olspan="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FFDEAD"\|Mission Statistics
b>Mission Name:	Salyut 3
b>Call Sign:	Salyut 3
b>Launch:	June 25, 1974 22:38:00 UTC Baikonur, U.S.S.R
b>Reentry:	January 24, 1975
b>Crews:	1
b>Occupied:	15 days
b>In Orbit:	213 days
b>Number of Orbits:	3,442
b>Apogee:	168 mi (270 km)
b>Perigee:	136 mi (219 km)
b>Period:	89.1 min
b>Inclination	51.6 deg
b>Distance Traveled:	~86,763,251 mi (~139,631,918 km)
b>Orbital Mass:	18,500 kg
olspan="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FFDEAD"\|Salyut 3

Salyut 3 was launched on June 25, 1974. It was another Almaz military space station, this one launched successfully, included in the Salyut program to disguise its true purpose.
It attained an altitude of 219 to 270 km on launch and its final orbital altitude was 268 to 272 km. Salyut 3 had a total mass of about 18 to 19 tons. It had two solar panels laterally mounted on the center of the station and a retactable recovery module for the return of research data and materials. Only one of the three intended crews successfully boarded and manned the sation, brought by Soyuz 14; Soyuz 15 attempted to bring a second crew but failed to dock. Nevertheless, Salyut 3 was an overall success. It tested a wide variety of reconnaisance sensors; on September 23, 1974, the station's recovery module was released and re-entered, being recovered by the Soviets. On January 24, 1975 trials of the on-board 23 mm Nudelmann aircraft cannon (other sources say it was a Nudelmann NR-30 30 mm gun) were conducted with positive results at ranges from 3000 m to 500 m. Cosmonauts have confirmed that a target satellite was destroyed in the test. The next day, the station was ordered to deorbit.