Letter from James Fletcher to President Gerald Ford Regarding Preparations for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

2168 AND SPACE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20546 U.S.A. OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATOR APR 8 1975 The President The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr. President: On April 5, 1975, the Soviet Union launched a manned Soyuz spacecraft for continuing experiments with the Salyut 4 space station. Liftoff was successful; however, difficulty with the third stage resulted in failure to attain sufficient speed to achieve orbit. The mission was aborted and the spacecraft returned safely to earth within the Soviet Union. This failure raises the question of Soviet readiness for our joint Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous mission. While there have been difficulties in some of the previous seventeen Soyuz missions, there has not been a failure to achieve orbit. Our past discussions with the Soviets and our examination of their technical fixes for earlier difficulties, which might be related to our joint mission, have given us assurance that the earlier difficulties have been resolved. In the regularly scheduled telephone conference today between Professor Konstantin D. Bushuyev of the USSR and Dr. Glynn S. Lunney of the U.S. Technical Directors for the Apollo-Soyuz mission, Dr. Bushuyev stated that the launch vehicle which failed was an earlier version of the booster used in the Soviet program. Although his analysis is not complete, Professor Bushuyev stated that there were no suspicions in any system common to the old and new versions of the booster. He further indicated that the newer version has been used successfully in previous flights. He positively assured us that the failure would not affect our joint program or the July 15 launch date. He has promised to provide further details when his analysis is complete. We, of course, are giving paramount consideration to the safety of our astronauts. The launch failure, should it recur, poses no concern for the safety of our astronauts because it happened before what would be the joint phase of the mission. In view of the earlier seventeen success- ful launches, there should be high confidence in the launch phase of the mission. As a precaution, however, the Soviets plan a complete backup spacecraft and crew, giving virtual assurance of successful launch. FORD own) a