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I assume, with the advent of the ISS, it is common for astronauts to return to earth in a different capsule to the one in which they first left the atmosphere. (I may be wrong) but who were the first person or people to do this? Was there someone on Skylab or Mir who did the same?

JeffUK
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    Related question https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/18933/how-many-people-have-returned-to-earth-in-a-different-type-of-vehicle-than-the-o – user2705196 Feb 18 '19 at 21:48
  • Welcome to History:Stack Exchange. Thank you for your question; please consider revising it to be more in line with our community expectations. Like many other stacks, we expect questions to provide evidence of prior research. That helps us to understand the question, and avoids our repeating work you've already done. Our [help], and other stacks provide additional resources to assist with revisions. – MCW Nov 27 '20 at 15:20
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    @MarkC.Wallace it has 34 upvotes, was posted a year ago, and has an accepted answer. If I was to cite any research now it would be the answer to this question! – JeffUK Nov 27 '20 at 16:14

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The first people who landed in a different vessel than they took off in were Aleksei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov. In January 1969, they took off in Soyuz-4 and returned in Soyuz-5. Crew exchange between directly docked spacecraft was the primary purpose of the Soyuz-4/Soyuz-5 mission.

Mission details: The First Crew Exchange in Space

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The first spacecraft switch using an orbital station took place much later, only in January 1978. Then the crew of the Soyuz-27 spacecraft (Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Oleg Makarov) returned in Soyuz-26 after spending five days on the Salyut-6 station.

Speaking of orbital stations, it's interesting to mention that Skylab (launched in May 1973) also had two docking modules (as the Salyut-6 had), so a similar "station-based crew exchange" could potentially happen earlier. However, there were only three non-overlapping expeditions to this station, with all the crews returning to Earth with their initial vessels. The Skylab Rescue mission was on standby from August 1973 to February 1974 in case of emergency.

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seven-phases-max
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  • Btw. I'm still curious when the first US vessel switch has happened (just to make sure the answer does not miss anything). It's weird I can't find anything about that (I only found this could potentially happen with Skylab Rescue program but it turned to be never needed). – seven-phases-max Feb 18 '19 at 11:44
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    @LangLangC Thanks! I think the Apollo 9 can fit the Q (at least partially) since we can count the LM as a different vessel even if they are launched all together. I think I'll add this into my A. especially since it was just less than 2 months after the Soyuz-4/5 mission. – seven-phases-max Feb 18 '19 at 12:36
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    @ LangLangC Sure this all depends on how wide we could interpret the Q itself (i.e. can we count just a "landing module" as a different vessel or spacecraft?). Sadly, STS-42 seems to be too late to be mentioned among 1969 and 1978 missions. Salyut 6-EO1 - sort of overlaps with Soyuz-27 mission (basically it's the same vessels they exchanged, and the crew started earlier but landed later). Skylab2 - aha, that's insteresting - I'll take a look into its details, thanks again. – seven-phases-max Feb 18 '19 at 12:55
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    I was thinking along the lines of "Something that went into space on a different launch vehicle" as per this answer. @LangLangC All Cosmonauts are Astronauts, but not all Astronauts are Cosmonauts! (This may make less sense if translated to Russian!) – JeffUK Feb 18 '19 at 13:58
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    I'd say "nauting" a star may be pretty uncomfortable so for me an Astronaut is just a weird way to refer to a Cosmonaut :) – seven-phases-max Feb 18 '19 at 14:08
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    I wouldn't recommend stating 'lunar module', because that was not aerodynamic and had no heat shield, that being non-necessary for a lunar landing. Apollo 9 was a low Earth orbit test of the LM but the crew achieved re-entry in the Command Module, as on all manned missions in the Apollo series. – Ed999 Feb 18 '19 at 16:54
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    The answer to the slightly different (but imho interesting) question "who first returned on a different type of vehicle" is: Norman Thagard, Gennady Strekalov, and Vladimir Dezhurov. Those three astronauts/cosmonauts flew to MIR on 14 Mar 1995 in a Soyuz (TM-21) and returned to Earth on Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-71) three months later on 27 June 1995. That's a pretty cool trip I'd say! – user2705196 Feb 18 '19 at 21:56
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    @user2705196 Btw., you make the same mistake as JeffUK. It's "Mir" (as in "Peace"), i.e. a regular word - not an abbreviation. Either way, indeed it's quite noticeable variation of the up-and-down... – seven-phases-max Feb 18 '19 at 22:14
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    @seven-phases-max You are of course right. I'm embarrassed to have capitalized the letters of Mir and was tempted to edit my post after reading your correction. But I'll let it stand as is so that your comment makes sense and others can see my mistake! (For what it's worth, I was fully aware that Mir is a regular word. Due to the proximity of ISS in the sentence it just had a certain symmetry to capitalize its letters too...!) – user2705196 Feb 18 '19 at 22:24
  • @user2705196 Buuuuuut "ISS" wasn't in the sentence ;) – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 19 '19 at 00:21
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit Jeez, where is my brain today. I guess that proves the ISS is always on my mind! – user2705196 Feb 19 '19 at 00:26
  • @user2705196 Quite right too :) – Lightness Races in Orbit Feb 19 '19 at 00:31
  • @JeffUK, FYI, in Russian it's exactly the opposite, of course: all austronauts are cosmonauts, but not vice versa. – Zeus Feb 19 '19 at 01:07
  • @Zeus I didn't know if it was reversed! So 'Astronaut' means American Cosmonaut? – JeffUK Feb 19 '19 at 09:03
  • @JeffUK - yes, sort of, probably often more like "In America they call Cosmonauts as Astronauts! Doh!" :) (The trick is that in Russian they also have a "nearly-native" word "Cosmos" that means exactly "an outer space" (in contrast to its Greek origin with much wider meaning). Hence "Cosmonaut" in Russian sounds much more natural than "yet another cryptic Greek synthesis"). – seven-phases-max Feb 19 '19 at 12:40