Soyuz 8

Mission Statistics
Mission:	Soyuz 8
Call sign:	Granit (Granite)
Launch:	October 13, 1969 10:20 UTC Baikonur LC31
Landing:	October 18, 1969 09:10 UTC 51° North 72° East
Duration:	4 days 22 hours 50 minutes
Orbits:	80

Soyuz 8 was part of a joint mission with Soyuz 6 and Soyuz 7 that saw three Soyuz spacecraft in orbit together at the same time, carrying seven cosmonauts.

The crew consisted of commander Vladimir Shatalov and flight-engineer Aleksei Yeliseyev, whose mission was to dock with Soyuz 7 and transfer crew, as the Soyuz 4 and 5 missions did. Soyuz 6 was to film the operation from nearby.

However, this objective was not achieved due to equipment failures. Soviet sources were later to claim that no docking had been intended, but this seems unlikely, given the docking adapters carried by the spacecraft, and the fact that both Shatalov and Yeliseyev were veterans of the previous successful docking mission. This was the last time that the Soviet crewed Moon landing hardware was tested in orbit, and the failure seems to have been one of the final nails in the coffin of the programme.

Previous Soyuz mission: Soyuz 7, Next Soyuz mission: Soyuz 9