When it became clear that the United States would land the first man on the moon, the Soviet Union began to switch the focus of their manned space program to an orbital workshop...a space station.
As America focused on its Apollo lunar landing program, the Soviets designed and built the first space station in history. On April 19, 1971, the space station Salyut 1 was launched into orbit (2 years before the American Skylab was launched).
Salyut 1 was the first in a series of 4 Soviet space stations with a primarily scientific intend (these were known as the DOS stations, this was DOS-1). Later they would also begin a military servailence space station program also under the Saylut name (known as Almaz stations-there were eventually 3 of these). But Salyut 1 was the first space station and was designed for scientific research and long duration space flight.
The diagram below shows the Salyut 1 station to the left and the Soyuz space craft to the right. As you can see, the station (which was put in orbit by a single launch) wasn't that large.
The history of Salyut 1 would be short with only 2 manned missions making the flight to the station.
Four days after the launch of the station (April 23, 1971), the first space station resident crew in history launched. This was the crew of the Soyuz 10 spacecraft. Upon arriving at the station, a faulty docking hatch on their spacecraft caused the crew to be unable to achieve hard dock with the station and therefore unable to enter the station. As a result, they returned to Earth having never set foot in Salyut 1. They landed on April 25, 1971, after a two day flight.
The next attemp to put a crew on the space station came in June with the flight of Soyuz 11. The crew consisted of three cosmonauts including mission commander Alexei Leonov who was a Soviet hero because he made the first space walk in history back in 1965. This figured to be the next great achievement in his career. Unfortunately (as it seemed at the time) it was not to be, four days before the launch one of Leonov's crewmates had a medical X-Ray indicate he might have tuberculosis and the whole prime crew was grounded as a result (it later turned out the crewmember did not).
So, the mission would fly with the backup crew on board. This consisted of cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov.
Soyuz 11 launched on June 6, 1971, and successifully docked with the Salyut 1 space station the next day. Although there were some minor problems during their time on the station (including a small fire) the mission seemed to go well. In an attempt for some public relations, the Soviet news agency followed the mission as it happened. Soyuz 11 would eventually set a new international space flight endurance record of 23 days (breaking the 17 day mark set by Soyuz 9 the previous year), that record would stand until it was broken by an American Skylab mission in 1973.
Due to several minor problems, the mission was cut short and ended after 23 days. Soyuz 11 reentered on June 29, 1971. Unfortunately, during reentry a pressure equalization valve opened prematurely and vented all the air out of the cabin. In order to fit three cosmonauts into the Soyuz capsule, space suits were not worn during the mission; as a result the crew had no protection. When ground crews recovered the capsule, they expected to welcome the record setters as hero's only to open the hatch and find the crew had perished during reentry.
Soyuz 11 would be the final flight to Salyut 1. Following the accident, the capsule was redesigned to hold only two cosmonauts with full space suits but it would not be ready in time to ferry crews to this station. On October 11, 1971, the station recieved a command to automatically fired its engines. This deorbited history's first space station.
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