Definitions for "SOYUZ"
Soviet spacecraft designed for three cosmonauts. It means " union".
The Russian Space Agency's spaceflight vehicle.
Soyuz are Russian spacecraft that have been used often since 1967 - this small workhorse carries only one or two people. In Russian, soyuz means "union." Soyuz 1 was launched on April 23, 1967 - it crashed on reentry, killing cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov (Soyuz's parachutes did not open). Russian cosmonauts used Soyuz spacecrafts to shuttle them back and forth from the MIR space station (one was kept with MIR for use as an eacape pod).