In 1971, the Salyut program launched the world's very first space station, Salyut 1, offering a permanent presence in space to run experiments and make astronomical observations. Over the next 15 years, the Soviet Union launched a number of stations, culminating in Salyut 7. This new station offered insights into outer space and how life interacts with extended stays in zero g.

Salyut 7 is perhaps best known for being the first dead space station to be brought back to working order. A fuel leak had caused an electrical failure, rendering the space station inert, but in 1985, the Soyuz T-13 mission was able to restore power and allow Salyut 7 to continue operating for just over a year, when it was succeeded by the Mir station.

Having served its purpose, Salyut 7 was abandoned and underwent an uncontrolled reentry on February 7, 1991, with some debris landing in Argentina around the town of Capitán Bermúdez. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the fall.

This specimen is a fragment of the space station, recovered after impact in Argentina. All specimens are enclosed in an acrylic specimen jar with a removable top which arrives in a handsome, glass-topped riker box case measuring 4x3x1". It comes complete with an informational card that serves as statement of authenticity.

With NASA triumphant in landing a man on the Moon before the USSR, the Soviets turned their attention to other pursuits in the great beyond. The space program that had launched the first artificial satellite, sent the first man and woman into space, and begun to explore Venus with remote probes would now set its sights on a new achievement: launching and maintaining a permanent space station in low Earth orbit. A continual presence in space would be a useful environment for experiments and astronomical observations. Though the Americans had lapped the Soviets, the Space Race was far from over.

Launched on April 19, 1971, Salyut 1 was the very first space station to orbit the Earth, followed two years later by NASA’s Skylab. The Soviet triumph was marred by the two missions to the station. Soyuz 10 arrived just a few days after Salyut 1’s launch but was unable to dock properly, and the mission was aborted. Soyuz 11 arrived a few weeks later and was able to dock, spending 22 days aboard the station conducting experiments. Tragically, the mission’s three cosmonauts asphyxiated during their return journey due to a faulty valve. They remain the only people to have died in space.

After the Soyuz 11 disaster, Salyut 1 was abandoned and burned up in the atmosphere a few months later. Four more Salyut stations followed to varying degrees of success until a design overhaul with Salyut 6, refined all the more by its successor, the Salyut 7. Launched on April 19, 1982, Salyut 7 weighed roughly 20 tons, held about 3,300 cubic feet of internal space, and was equipped with cameras, telescopes, other instruments, and even a small greenhouse environment. Amenities were few and far between, but the inclusion of a new refrigerator and greater freeze-dried food options surely helped some.

Though Salyut 7 was comparatively more comfortable than its predecessors, the space was still cramped, uncomfortable, and liable to cause conflict between visiting cosmonauts. Anatoly Berezovoi and Valentin Lebedev were already prone to arguing during their training to the point that flight controllers made the two swear not to go at it during their Soyuz T-5 flight. Once the pair arrived for their 211-day stay, this outer space odd couple was soon at each other’s throats. The irritable Lebedev, denied entry into the civilian cosmonaut corps for years due to high blood pressure, seemed destined to clash against the by-the-book military man Berezovoi.

Lebedev was prone to leaving instruments and tools floating around the station, while Berezovoi expected everything to be returned to its proper place. Berezovoi, in turn, was dismissive of Lebedev's successful growing of peas in the greenhouse. A faulty water system, punishing workloads, and isolation from the rest of the world only added to the men’s strife. As crowded as things were, it didn’t help when Soyuz T-6 arrived with two more cosmonauts and French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien as part of a joint mission.

As Lebedev and Berezovoi approached the record for the longest space station mission duration, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died, imperiling the mission and risking a premature cancellation. Luckily, the mission continued, and the pair returned to Earth on December 10, 1982. Lebedev’s obsession with his pea plants paid off, too, with the first healthy seeds produced in space. Luckily, the five other main Salyut 7 missions were not quite as contentious, but they were not without their drama.

Soyuz T-9’s cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Aleksandr Aleksandrov had to contend with a nitrogen tetroxide leak, nearly necessitating abandoning the station. To continue operation, the station’s temperature had to be kept at 55°F, breaking the water-recycling system and raising the system’s humidity to 100%. The problem could be solved by installing another solar panel to raise their energy, but neither man was trained for spacewalks. When their backup crew’s rocket exploded on the pad, the pair had to brave the void of space on their own, but they successfully installed the panel and returned to Earth a few weeks later. During their mission, the two also recorded footage for Return from Orbit (1984), a sci-fi film.