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 * align="top" align="left" rowspan="1" colspan="2" | Almaz radar satellite.svg Figure 2-5. Almaz radar satellite.


 * width="33.3%" valign="top" align="left" rowspan="2" colspan="1"|but as early as October 1973, agreement was reached to resume the talks. In January 1975, Johnson Space Center Director Christopher Kraft outlined a possible future for U.S.-Soviet space cooperation, calling for a 1980 Shuttle docking with “whatever craft the U.S.S.R. intends to fly at that time.” He suggested that a joint space station program could begin in 1983, and that Soviet cosmonauts could fly as Shuttle passengers.

In October 1976, Acting NASA Administrator Alan Lovelace met with Intercosmos Council chairman Boris Petrov and other Soviet officials to discuss a Shuttle docking with a Salyut space station (figure 2-6). NASA would not commit to any program ahead of the approaching U.S. Presidential elections. A formal agreement creating Shuttle-Salyut working groups was signed
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2.1.5 Almaz: Conversion (1980-1993)
Mashinostroyeniye converted leftover Almaz hardware into unmanned satellites equipped with the ECOR-A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system for imaging the Earth’s surface. The first such satellite was lost in 1985, after its Proton booster failed. The second, Cosmos 1870, was an experimental prototype. It operated from July 1987 to July 1989. The latest satellite in the series was called Almaz 1, thereby producing confusion among persons aware of the Salyut 2/Almaz 1 space station. Almaz 1 (figure 2-5) returned images from March 1991 to October 1992. In September 1992, Valentin Etkin, the chief of the Department of Applied Space Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Space Research Institute, described a further application of Almaz hardware. He called for a “Space Laboratory for the Study of Earth as an Ecological System” based on Almaz. The system would consist of three or four Almaz-derived satellites, each carrying 6.5 tons of scientific apparatus. According to a 1993 report, the Almaz 1V radar and optical Earth observation satellite is set for launch in June-July 1996, and the Almaz 2 satellite is being designed, with launch set for 1998.
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2.1.6 Shuttle-Salyut (1973-1978; 1980s)
The Apollo Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) grew from and rapidly superseded joint U.S.-Soviet talks on compatibility of future spacecraft,
 * width="33.3%" valign="top" align="left" rowspan="1" colspan="2"| Salyut docked with shuttle.svg Figure 2-6. Conceptual drawing of Shuttle docked with Salyut.
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