1975 in spaceflight

In 1975 several notable events happened in spaceflight such as the launch and arrival at Venus of Venera 9 and 10, the launch to Mars of the Viking orbiter/landers missions, the joint Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, and the launch of satellite Aryabhatta.

• The Venera 9 mission was launched 8 June 1975 and on 20 October 1975 became the first spacecraft to orbit Venus; two days later its lander returned the first images from the surface of any planet (other than Earth).
• Venera 10 was launched on 14 June 1975; it entered orbit of Venus on 23 October 1975 and its lander arrived on the surface of Venus on 25 October 1975. Both Venera 9 and Venera 10 returned various scientific observations of Venus and black-and-white television pictures from the planet's surface.
• Viking 1 was launched on 20 August 1975 and Viking 2 was launched 9 September 1975. This orbiter/lander mission was to photograph the surface of Mars in 1976.
• The Apollo-Soyuz saw an end to the space race with the US and USSR. The mission was launched between 15 July 1975 and 17 July 1975.
• On 19 April India launched its first satellite, Aryabhatta with success.

1975 in spaceflight

Artist's impression of the ASTP docking
Orbital launches
First	10 January
Last	27 December
Total	132
Catalogued	125
National firsts
Satellite	India
Rockets
Maiden flights	Atlas SLV-3D Centaur-D1AR Delta 3000 Diamant-BP4 Long March 2C N-I Scout F-1 Titan III(34)B
Retirements	Atlas SLV-3D Centaur-D1A Delta 1000 Diamant-BP4 Saturn IB Scout F-1
Crewed flights
Orbital	4
Suborbital	1
Total travellers	9

Launches

Date and time (UTC)	Rocket		Flight number	Launch site		LSP
		Payload (⚀ = CubeSat)	Operator	Orbit	Function	Decay (UTC)	Outcome
		Remarks
January
10 January 21:43:37	Soyuz			Baikonur Site 1/5
		Soyuz 17		Low Earth (Salyut 4)	Salyut expedition	19 February 11:03	Successful
		Crewed flight with two cosmonauts, first mission to Salyut 4
February
March
April
5 April 11:04:54	Soyuz			Baikonur Site 1/5
		Soyuz 7K-T #39		Intended: Low Earth (Salyut 4)	Salyut expedition	11:26	Launch failure
		Crewed flight with two cosmonauts, first and second core stages failed to separate, flight aborted and crew returned on suborbital trajectory
9 April 23:58:02	Delta 1410			Vandenberg SLC-2W		NASA
		GEOS-3	NASA	Low Earth	Geodesy	In orbit	Successful
19 April	Kosmos-3M			Kapustin Yar		Soviet Interkosmos programme
		Aryabhatta	ISRO	Low Earth	X-ray astronomy, aeronomics, and solar physics studies	11 February 1992	Launch success, payload partial failure
		First Indian satellite; payload failed 4–5 days after launch
May
24 May 14:58:10	Soyuz			Baikonur Site 1/5
		Soyuz 18		Low Earth (Salyut 4)	Salyut expedition	26 July 14:18	Successful
		Crewed flight with two cosmonauts, final mission to Salyut 4
June
July
15 July 14:58:10	Soyuz-U			Baikonur Site 1/5
		Soyuz 19		Low Earth (Apollo)	International docking	21 July 10:50	Successful
		Crewed flight with two cosmonauts, Soviet contribution to the Apollo Soyuz Test Project
15 July 19:50:01	Saturn IB			Kennedy LC-39B		NASA
		Apollo	NASA	Low Earth (Soyuz 19)	International docking	24 July 21:18	Successful
		DM-2	NASA	Low Earth (Apollo)	Docking adaptor	2 August	Successful
		Crewed flight with three astronauts, American contribution to the Apollo Soyuz Test Project, final flight of the Apollo programme and the Saturn rocket
August
20 August 21:22:00	Titan IIIE			Cape Canaveral LC-41
		Viking 1 Orbiter	NASA	Areocentric	Mars orbiter	In orbit	Successful
		Viking 1 Lander	NASA	Areocentric	Mars lander	20 July 1976 11:53:06	Successful
		Lander landed in Chryse Planitia, becoming the first US spacecraft to land on Mars. It operated until 11 November 1982 when communications were lost due to an erroneous command being sent to the spacecraft. Orbiter was deactivated on 17 August 1980.
September
9 September 18:39:00	Titan IIIE			Cape Canaveral LC-41
		Viking 2 Orbiter	NASA	Areocentric	Mars orbiter	In orbit	Successful
		Viking 2 Lander	NASA	Areocentric	Mars lander	3 September 1976 22:58:20	Successful
		Lander landed in Utopia Planitia and operated until its batteries failed on 11 April 1980. Orbiter was deactivated on 25 July 1978.
October
16 October 22:40:00	Delta 2914			Cape Canaveral SLC-17B		NASA
		GOES 1	NOAA	Geostationary	Meteorology	In orbit	Successful
		First operational geostationary weather satellite. Deactivated on March 7, 1985
November
December

Deep space rendezvous

Date	Spacecraft	Event	Remarks
16 March	Mariner 10	3rd flyby of Mercury	Closest approach: 327 kilometres (203 mi)
20 October	Venera 9	Cytherocentric orbit insertion	First orbiter of Venus
22 October	Venera 9 lander	Venerian landing	Landed at 05:13 UTC; first images from Venus surface
23 October	Venera 10	Cytherocentric orbit insertion
25 October	Venera 10 lander	Venerian landing	Landed at 05:17 UTC

EVAs

Start Date/Time	Duration	End Time	Spacecraft	Crew	Remarks

References

Generic references:
 Spaceflight portal

• Bergin, Chris. "NASASpaceFlight.com".
• Clark, Stephen. "Spaceflight Now".
• Kelso, T.S. "Satellite Catalog (SATCAT)". CelesTrak.
• Krebs, Gunter. "Chronology of Space Launches".
• Kyle, Ed. "Space Launch Report".
• McDowell, Jonathan. "Jonathan's Space Report".
• Pietrobon, Steven. "Steven Pietrobon's Space Archive".
• Wade, Mark. "Encyclopedia Astronautica".
• Webb, Brian. "Southwest Space Archive".
• Zak, Anatoly. "Russian Space Web".
• "ISS Calendar". Spaceflight 101.
• "NSSDCA Master Catalog". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
• "Space Calendar". NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
• "Space Information Center". JAXA.
• "Хроника освоения космоса" [Chronicle of space exploration]. CosmoWorld (in Russian).

Footnotes