## The space stations

The Soviet Salyut space station line was, in fact, two different programs. One was a military Almaz programme with OPS station design, and the other was civilian Salyut with their DOS design. The DOS was, in fact, the hull of an OPS outfitted with additional hardware. The original OPS was designed in the mid-1960’s by the OKB-52 secret facility lead by Chelomei. As they struggled with funding and fell behind schedule, the original design was “borrowed” by engineers from OKB-1, lead by Korolev.

His people used Chelomei’s main hull and outfitted it with the engines, solar panels, and docking and transfer systems from their own space craft, Soyuz (which was, primarily, developed to fly to the Moon; once it never did, it flew to low Earth orbit in 1967 and still does so, ferrying astronauts and cosmonauts to the ISS in 2021!). Korolev’s people used somebody else’s experience, but did their own work, and in 1971 for the first time in history they put a space base in orbit. And manned it. And it was a success.