Soviets Recovered an Apollo Capsule!

The Soviet Union had recovered an Apollo capsule in 1969 and returned it to the Americans a year later in the extraordinary Cold War visit to Murmansk by the American Coast Guard icebreaker Southwind. Recently Michael Stronski, a Southwind crew member, has provided additional extraordinary photographs of the event.

In early 1970, UK-based naval units were training in recovery of an Apollo boilerplate capsule (BP-1227) as part of their assigned mission of rescuing Apollo spacecraft in the case of an emergency abort or return to earth. The capsule disappeared at sea. The circumstances of the loss of the capsule are still not clear. It is not known whether a Soviet 'fishing vessel' nearby was in fact a spy trawler and if the capsule was taken as part of an intelligence operation.

While in Murmansk the crew was surprised to be presented with an American Apollo capsule, which the Soviets said had been recovered by one of their fishing vessels in the Bay of Biscay. It was BP-1227 - the capsule that had gone missing a year earlier. The handover was made with considerable ceremony and covered by Hungarian press representatives. The capsule was loaded onto the ship at the forward gun mount. Lashed to the deck, it accompanied the Southwind after its departure from Murmansk and later tour of the Kara Sea. This photograph shows the capsule in icy conditions on that part of the voyage.

Originally from: http://www.astronautix.com/articles/sovpsule.htm