Early Soyuz Mission Patches

The Soyuz program was a Russian manned space program that began in the early 1960s. The early Soyuz program was plagued by tragedy. The first manned flight was Soyuz 1 which was launched on April 23, 1967. It was piloted by Vladimir Komarov who was later killed when the parachutes failed to open during re-entry. It was the first fatality in the history of human spaceflight. Four years later, the entire 3-member crew of Soyuz 11 was killed when the cabin depressurized during flight because of a faulty seal. The program moved forward, and after design modifications, the Soyuz became a reliable spacecraft for transporting astronauts to Earth orbit. It would later be used to transport crews to the orbiting Salyut and Mir Stations and the International Space Station (ISS).

The Interkosmos program was developed during 1978 to give access other countries access to Russia's space program. The program included allied east-European nations, as well as other socialist and communist nations like Afghanistan, Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam. In addition non-aligned nations such as India, Syria, and France also participated in the program. Special mission insignia were developed to commemorate the Interkosmos missions and to highlight the nations that participated in each mission.