Dark Space Official on MSN

The Soviet space station that hid a real cannon, and the day it was actually fired in orbit

In the 1970s, the USSR quietly armed a covert military space station under the Salyut program, then carried out a real cannon ...
Dark Space Official on MSN

The secret Soviet space gun built for bears and wolves, why cosmonauts carried weapons after landing

After two cosmonauts vanished into a frozen forest in 1965, the Soviet space program quietly built a dedicated survival weapon for landings gone wrong. This story follows the TP-82, the myths around ...
Yahoo

Russia’s Space Program Is Another Casualty of the War in Ukraine

A Russian Soyuz rocket is raised on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 5, 2025. Launching three days later, it carried NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and Roscosmos cosmonauts ...
New Atlas

Cold War-era Soviet probe set to crash back to Earth next week

The Space Age past may come knocking on the world's door next week as the defunct Soviet Union's Kosmos 482 Venus lander from 1972 makes an unwelcome return home and is predicted to crash into the ...
Smithsonian Magazine

How the U.S. and the Soviet Union Made Unsuccessful Attempts to Collaborate During the Space Race

Could the moon landing have been an international program? Roger D. Launius President John F. Kennedy and Chairman Nikita Khrushchev during their meeting in Vienna, Austria. National Archives and ...
The National Interest

The Forgotten Soviet Plan to Beat the US to Mars

The USSR’s ambitious Mars mission was initially planned to launch in 1975, but it was never executed. During the Cold War, significant advancements occurred in the fields of science and technology as ...
The New York Times

Soviet Spacecraft Crash Lands on Earth After a Journey of Half a Century

Kosmos-482, a spacecraft bound for Venus in 1972, was a time capsule from the Cold War when superpowers had broad ambitions for exploring the solar system. A cutaway diagram of the Venera 8 landing ...
Yahoo

Putin praises Elon Musk, compares him to father of Soviet space program

Russian President Putin chairs a meeting on the development of Russian Navy in Saint Petersburg MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised Elon Musk, comparing him to ...
insider.si.edu

Voices of the Soviet space program : cosmonauts, soldiers, and engineers who took the USSR into space / [edited by] Slava Gerovitch

Introduction: Multiple perspectives on Soviet space history -- Commanding officer Abram Krayzman -- Construction engineer Sergey Safro -- Engine designer Anatoliy Daron -- Guidance engineer Sergei ...
The National Interest

The Soviet Union’s Forgotten Mars-Venus Mission

That’s where the USSR’s Heavy Interplanetary Vessel (TMK) comes into the picture. Conceived during the height of the Space Race of the Cold War, the TMK program endeavored to send crewed missions to ...
Ars Technica

Russian space official: “We need to stop lying to ourselves” about health of industry

The chief of Russia’s main spacecraft manufacturer issued a dire warning this week, saying that his corporation has reached a “critical” condition and cannot continue in its present state. “The ...