On this day in space! July 15, 1975: Astronauts and cosmonauts launch on 1st joint U.S.-Soviet space mission

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On July 15, 1975, the first joint space mission between the United States and the Soviet Union blasted off into orbit.

On July 15, 1975, the first joint space mission between the United States and the Soviet Union blasted off into orbit. They called it the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. This mission ceremoniously marked the end of the space race.

two men floating in space reach out and shake hands across the open threshold of a spacecraft hatchway (Image credit: NASA)

First, Russian cosmonauts Alexey Leonov and Valery Kubasov lifted off from Kazakhstan. A few hours later, NASA astronauts Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand and Donald "Deke" Slayton lifted off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center in an Apollo command module.

Two days later, the spacecraft rendezvoused and docked in orbit, and the two crews greeted each other with what became the first international handshakes to happen in space.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.