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Author
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Topic: Apollo-Soyuz Test Project OFK, APK manifests
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Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 54911
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 07-14-2025 09:00 AM
   
collectSPACE ASTP at 50: Inside the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project official flight kitThey were among the last items to be cleared for flight on a high-profile space mission that was already packed with ceremonial mementos. On June 27, 1975, then-NASA Administrator James Fletcher wrote a memo to John Yardley, the agency's head of human space flight, asking him to "make arrangements" to include two bicentennial lapel pins aboard the command module set to lift off on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), the first joint mission with Russia (then, the Soviet Union). It was just 19 days before the scheduled liftoff of what would be the last crewed flight before the U.S. celebrated its 200th birthday the next year...  |
Larry McGlynn
Member Posts: 1457
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Jul 2003
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posted 07-14-2025 01:47 PM
I have one of the wooden two section US/USSR flag displays like the one at Sotheby's. Mine is from Walter Stoessel, who was the US Ambassador to the USSR at the time of the flight. They are great display artifacts. The two sections representing the US and the USSR with the Apollo spacecraft with flown US flag on one side and the Soyuz spacecraft with flown USSR flag on the other side can come apart at the docking collar of the Soyuz and the docking model collar on Apollo. The two spacecraft dock when you fit them back together. The plaque is in the shape of the two special plaques that were joined together by Stafford and Leonov while in space. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 54911
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 07-14-2025 06:45 PM
It is a very impressive display. So, as mentioned in the article, the location(s) of the two bicentennial pins added late to the ASTP OFK is/are unknown. The same is true for the 13-star flag flown for the country's 200th birthday. Or, at least, I could not find them. With the semiquincentennial approaching next year, is anyone aware of the ASTP-flown bicentennial items' current whereabouts or remember seeing them in 1976? |
MartinAir
Member Posts: 460
From:
Registered: Oct 2020
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posted 07-15-2025 01:51 AM
The Space Magna Carta documents, which were signed during the mission, were flown aboard the Soyuz? |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 54911
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 07-15-2025 08:14 AM
The documents were aboard the Apollo command module, but were not part of the Official Flight Kit. NASA packed a separate "gift bag" that included the items that were exchanged or displayed during the flight. A pre-flight photo shows two of the documents as part of this set. It is interesting, though, how often we see examples of the document come up for sale. Some auction listings say there were only four aboard. The frequency that they are sold or that they even come up for sale at all suggests either more than four flew (either on the command module or also on the Soyuz) or all of them did not fly. |
MartinAir
Member Posts: 460
From:
Registered: Oct 2020
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posted 07-15-2025 06:53 PM
More mementos were exchanged, would be interesting to know the content of that gift bag as well. I have this Apollo Soyuz related communication cable and according to the stowage list the same part number "V52-440146, 06362 AAK5382" was stowed in the docking module and later transferred to the command module for reentry.  |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 54911
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 07-15-2025 07:20 PM
The American crew formally reported receiving only one gift from the Soviet crew inflight: "a small gold medallion by the Cosmonauts on behalf of the Russian people."Post-flight, they also received a "Russian watch from Secretary General Brezhnev" and a "gold-plated Konja (Arabian knife) from Sheikh Zayed, President of the United Arab Emirates at Abu Dhabi." They reported the items because they did not know if they exceeded the monetary threshold to be considered official gifts. They proposed keeping the medallions and that "one of each [of the watches and knives] be placed on display in Houston and in Washington" (with no word on what was to become of the third). Your cable must have been presented to an American, as it is not on the post-flight list of the equipment removed from the command module for later presentation to the cosmonauts. |
randyc
Member Posts: 942
From: Highlands Ranch, CO USA
Registered: May 2003
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posted 07-16-2025 05:45 PM
I have a plaque that has a flown Soyuz J-Box Adapter mounted to it that was given to Bob Overmyer by the ASTP crew. Overmyer was one of the astronaut CapComs in the USSR during the mission. |
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