The
Salyut programme (, ,
Salute or
Fireworks) was the first
space station programme undertaken by the
Soviet Union, which consisted of a series of four crewed scientific research space stations and two crewed military reconnaissance space stations over a period of 15 years from 1971 to 1986. Two other Salyut launches failed. Salyut was, on the one hand, designed to carry out long-term research into the problems of living in space and a variety of astronomical, biological and Earth-resources experiments, and on the other hand this civilian program was used as a cover for the highly secretive military
Almaz stations, which flew under the Salyut designation.
Salyut 1, the first station in the program, became the world's first crewed space station.