In 1973, the Soyuz 13 mission carried a massive telescope to study the stars
While the world watched the Apollo missions, Soviet cosmonauts launched a modified spacecraft into orbit carrying the Orion 2, a massive specialized telescope designed to capture the secrets of ultraviolet stellar radiation.
In December 1973, cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk embarked on a unique scientific mission aboard Soyuz 13. Unlike previous flights focused on docking with stations, this craft was a mobile observatory. It carried the massive Orion 2 camera system, which allowed the crew to photograph stars in ultraviolet light—spectrums invisible to the human eye and blocked by Earth's atmosphere.
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