The United States and the Soviet Union Sign a Space Cooperation Agreement
50 Years Ago: The United States and the Soviet Union Sign a Space Cooperation Agreement
During the 1960s, collaboration in the space arena between the United States and the Soviet Union remained at a low level, the relationship characterized more by competition than cooperation. In the climate of détente in the early 1970s, the two nations began discussions to develop a common docking system. On May 24, 1972, during their summit meeting in Moscow, the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union, President Richard M. Nixon and Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin, signed an agreement on cooperation in space. One of its articles called for the development of a joint system to allow their spacecraft to dock with each other in orbit, laying the groundwork for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first international human spaceflight carried out in July 1975.
