Despite technical difficulties and antagonism, by the end of 1972 a team led by the talented Soviet engineer Vladimir Chelomei and supported by the military completed the development of the first scaled-down version of a military space station called Almaz (meaning diamond).
As a result, by the beginning of 1973 two competing teams were preparing their respective space stations in Baikonur: Almaz and DOS 3, a successor built by Soviet space designer Sergei Korolev's team to the first Soviet space station (Salyut 1).
Yet the last thing Soviet officials wanted was to reveal to the world the existence of the two space station projects, especially the super-classified Almaz.
So when Almaz was lifted into the orbit on April 3, 1973, it was disguised as "Salyut 2." Legend has it that an embittered Chelomei ordered that the name "Salyut" be painted on the section of the station which connected to the launch vehicle but then was discarded immediately after the spacecraft reached the orbit.
Despite a successful launch, after two days in flight ground control engineers spotted trouble: the flight control system was failing, and data showed a loss of pressure inside the station. While it was immediately clear that the station had become uninhabitable, a search for the cause of the disaster posed many questions.
Official results of the investigation blamed the propulsion system. However, Western analysts and journalists eventually pointed out to Soviet designers a much more likely scenario: the Proton rocket's upper stage apparently exploded in orbit, creating cloud of "shrapnel" which soon pierced the station. Western radars detected extensive debris in the area.
Despite the failure of Salyut 2, the Soviet space station campaign in the spring of 1973 continued on May 11 with the launch of DOS 3, just three days before the U.S. space station Skylab took off from Cape Canaveral.
The DOS 3 featured a number of important improvements, some based on the experience with Salyut 1. The station was equipped with custom-built solar arrays, which unlike panels borrowed from Soyuz on the previous stations, could actually track the sun, increasing the supply of power to the spacecraft.
The DOS 3 launch went flawlessly, but soon there were major problems. Due to errors in the flight control system, and while out of the range of ground control, the station fired its orbit-correction engines until it consumed all its fuel,. Since the spacecraft already was in orbit and had been registered by Western radar, the Russians disguised the launch as "Cosmos 557" and quietly allowed it to reenter Earth's atmosphere and burn up a week later.
Continuous fiascoes in the DOS (non-military space station) program prompted the government to create a special investigation commission led by Vechaslav Kovtunenko, a prominent space industry figure. Even the KGB got involved, suspecting sabotage. In the wake of the investigation, the manager who led the space station project was forced out -- a rare fate in the Soviet space program.
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