abstract
| - The TKS spacecraft (, , Transport Supply Spacecraft, GRAU index 11F72) was a Soviet spacecraft conceived in the late 1960s for resupply flights to the military Almaz space station. The spacecraft was designed for both crewed or autonomous uncrewed cargo resupply flights, but was never used operationally in its intended role – only four test missions were flown to Salyut space stations during the program. However the Functional Cargo Block (FGB) of the TKS spacecraft would later form the basis of several space station modules, including the Zarya FGB module on the International Space Station. The TKS spacecraft consisted of two spacecraft mated together, both of which could operate independently:
* The VA spacecraft (known in the West as the Merkur spacecraft), which would have housed the cosmonauts during launch and reentry of an TKS spacecraft, while traveling to and from an Almaz space station.
* And the Functional Cargo Block (FGB) which, in order to resupply an Almaz space station, carried docking hardware, tanks and a large pressurized cargo compartment. Furthermore the FGB carried the on-orbit maneuvering engines for the TKS. While the VA carried the reentry hardware, and only minimal life support and maneuvering systems, the FGB would have been used as the primary orbital maneuvering system and cargo storage for the TKS spacecraft. The FGB could also be used alone as an unmanned cargo module without an VA spacecraft, which enabled the FGB design to be re-purposed as FGB space station modules later on. The VA spacecraft on the other hand was also intended to be launched as "Almaz APOS", mated with an Almaz-OPS space station core as the primary orbital maneuvering system, instead of a FGB. , Excalibur Almaz planned to use the VA capsule as low-cost cargo return vehicles.
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