🔗 Salyut 7 space station salvage mission

🔗 United States 🔗 Soviet Union 🔗 Russia 🔗 Russia/technology and engineering in Russia 🔗 Spaceflight 🔗 China

Docking and berthing of spacecraft is the joining of two space vehicles. This connection can be temporary, or partially permanent such as for space station modules.

Docking specifically refers to joining of two separate free-flying space vehicles. Berthing refers to mating operations where an inactive module/vehicle is placed into the mating interface of another space vehicle by using a robotic arm. Because the modern process of un-berthing needs more labor and is time-consuming, berthing operations are unsuited for rapid crew evacuations in the event of an emergency.