Background
The Soyuz 16 mission was the final rehearsal and first manned mission in a program which culminated in the Apollo-Soyuz (ASTP) mission seven months later. The Soviet Union and the United States of America, Cold War rivals, had signed several arms control treaties in the 1960s and 1970s, and had entered into a period of detente by the early 1970s. In 1972, a treaty was signed to participate in a joint manned space flight as a symbol of this detente.
Early concepts for a joint flight included docking a Soyuz craft to the American Skylab space station, or an Apollo vehicle docking with a Salyut space station. Once the Americans abandoned their Skylab station in 1974, the Apollo-Salyut concept seemed to be the logical choice, but since the Soviets had started to develop a universal docking adapter for the mission and feared having to publicly reveal details of their military-focused Salyut missions, the two powers opted to link a Soyuz spacecraft with an Apollo spacecraft.
Three test flights of an unmanned version of the ASTP spacecraft were flown: Cosmos 638, launched 3 April 1974; Cosmos 652, launched 15 May 1974; and Cosmos 672, launched 12 August 1974. These three flights, and Soyuz 16, were all launched with an improved version of a Soyuz booster.
Read more about this topic: Soyuz 16
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