Soyuz 4 will reenter Earth's atmosphere and land February 17 while Soyuz 5 will have a hard landing February 18.

On September 18, 2006, an Iranian American named Anousheh Ansari became the fourth space tourist ( Soyuz TMA-9 ).

After 18 orbits, Soyuz 1 fired retrorockets and reentered the Earth's atmosphere.

*** Soyuz 18

Soyuz 18 (, Union 18 ) was a 1975 Soviet manned mission to Salyut 4, the second and final crew to man the space station.

To avoid any conflict of resources, the Soyuz 18 crew was controlled from the old Crimean Control Center, while the ASTP Soyuz 19 mission would be controlled from the Kaliningrad Control Center.

The ASTP crews were launched 15 and 16 July, and the Soyuz 18 crew communicated with the Soyuz 19 crew on two brief occasions.

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Boris Valentinovich Volynov (; born December 18, 1934 ) is a Soviet cosmonaut who flew two space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 5, and Soyuz 21.

On 6 July 1976 Volynov and Flight Engineer Vitaliy Zholobov were launched on board Soyuz 21 to spend 18 days aboard the space station Salyut 5.

Vitaly Ivanovich Sevastyanov (; 8 July 1935, Krasnouralsk, USSR – 5 April 2010 ) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 9 and Soyuz 18 missions.

Nikolay Nikolayevich Rukavishnikov (; September 18, 1932, Tomsk – October 19, 2002 ) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 10, Soyuz 16, and Soyuz 33.

On January 16, 1969, the Soviet Union achieved the first EVA crew transfer from one spacecraft to another when Aleksei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov transferred from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4, which were docked together.

The crew of the Apollo 13 mission survived despite an explosion caused by a faulty oxygen tank ( 1970 ); the crews of Soyuz 11 ( 1971 ), the Space Shuttles Challenger ( 1986 ) and Columbia ( 2003 ) were killed by malfunctions of their vessels ' components.

* 1971 – The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve.

* 1969 – Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the first-ever docking of manned spacecraft in orbit, the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another, and the only time such a transfer was accomplished with a space walk.

* 2000 – The first resident crew to the ISS docked in November 2nd on the Soyuz TM-31.

* 2000 – Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station.

Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission ( which ended in a fatal crash ).

* October 30 – This is the final date during which there is no human presence in space ; on October 31, Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station.

* January 15 – The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5, which docked with Soyuz 4 for a transfer of crew.

** After a successful mission aboard Salyut 1, the world's first manned space station, the crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply leaks out through a faulty valve.

* February 9 – The Soyuz 17 crew ( Georgi Grechko, Aleksei Gubarev ) returns to Earth after 1 month aboard the Salyut 4 space station.

The civilian stations Salyut 6 and Salyut 7 were built with two docking ports, which allowed a second crew to visit, bringing a new spacecraft with them ; the Soyuz ferry could spend 90 days in space, after which point it needed to be replaced by a fresh Soyuz spacecraft.

While Skylab already featured a second docking port, it were these two Salyut stations that would become the first that actually utilized two docking ports: This made it possible for two Soyuz spacecraft to dock at the same time for crew exchange of the station and for Progress spacecraft to resupply the station, allowing for the first time a continuos (" permanent ") occupation of space stations.

Three days later, the Soyuz 10 crew attempted to dock with it, but failed to achieve a secure enough connection to safely enter the station.

The Soyuz 11 crew of Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev successfully docked on 7 June and completed a record 22-day stay.

The mission plan was complex, involving a rendezvous with Soyuz 2, swapping crew members before returning to Earth.

The crew of Soyuz 2 modified their mission goals, preparing themselves for a launch that would include fixing the solar panel of Soyuz 1.

The last Saturn IB flight was launched on July 15, 1975, carrying a three-man crew on a six-day mission to dock with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft .. Called the Apollo – Soyuz Test Project ( ASTP ), the primary purpose was to provide engineering experience for future joint space flights, but both spacecraft also had scientific experiments.

The company continues to dominate a large part of the Russian space program, and a considerable part of the World's space program, with its Soyuz rockets and spacecraft having become the only crewed spacecraft conducting regular flights and the exclusive crew transport vehicle for the International Space Station after the Space Shuttle retirement.

The first two Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites were launched by Soyuz ST-B flown from Guiana Space Centre on October 21, 2011.

The first two satellites were launched on 21 October 2011 from Guiana Space Centre using a Soyuz launcher.

Gagarin was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov in the Soyuz 1 flight, which was launched despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.

There were 11 Soyuz launches in 2001 and 9 in 2002.

When interviewed on May 17 by the newspaper Komosmolskaya Pravda, Yuri Gagarin alluded to the failure of the administration to listen to the concerns about the Soyuz module that were identified by the cosmonaut corps and that Komarov's death should teach the establishment to be more rigorous in its testing and evaluation of " all the mechanisms of the spaceship, even more attentive to all stages of checking and testing, even more vigilant in our encounter with the unknown.

After Komarov's death, the communications systems on-board all Soviet spacecraft were modified – because Komarov's voice transmissions from Soyuz 1 had blocked its telemetry signals.

Russian capsules for Soyuz make use of braking rockets as were designed to touch down on land.

Salyut 1's orbit was increased to prevent premature reentry, but further piloted flights were delayed while the Soyuz was redesigned to fix the new safety problem.

Prior to launch, Soyuz 1 engineers are said to have reported 203 design faults to party leaders, but their concerns " were overruled by political pressures for a series of space feats to mark the anniversary of Lenin's birthday.

In an experiment led by Leopoldo Sancho from the Complutense University of Madrid, two species of lichen — Rhizocarpon geographicum and Xanthoria elegans — were sealed in a capsule and launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket on 31 May 2005.

As of May 2008, groundworks were still continuing but the flame pit was substantially complete, along with the shell of the Soyuz assembly building.

On October 21, 2011 two Galileo IOV-1 & IOV-2 satellites were launched using a Soyuz-ST rocket, in the " first Russian Soyuz vehicle ever launched from Europe ’ s Spaceport in French Guiana.

In the beginning there were serious reliability problems with both the new Proton rocket and the similar new Soyuz spacecraft, but the test flights pressed ahead with some glitches.

Khrunov went out first, transferring to the Soyuz 4 orbital module while the docked spacecraft were out of radio contact with the Soviet Union over South America.

Extensive medical experiments were carried out on 23 June, as the crew surpassed the Soviet space endurance record of 29 days, set by Soyuz 17, the Salyut's previous crew.