From 1977 until 1982 Salyut 6 was visited by five long-duration crews and 11 short-term crews, including cosmonauts from Warsaw Pact countries. The very first long-duration crew on Salyut 6 broke a record set on board Skylab, staying 96 days in orbit. The longest flight onboard Salyut 6 lasted 185 days. The fourth Salyut 6 expedition deployed a 10-meter radio-telescope antenna delivered by a cargo ship. After Salyut 6 manned operations were discontinued in 1981, a heavy unmanned spacecraft called TKS and developed using hardware left from the canceled Almaz program was docked to the station as a hardware test. Salyut 6 was deorbited July 29, 1982.
Progress docked automatically at the aft port, and was then opened and unlocked by cosmonauts on the station. Transfer of fuel to the station took place automatically under supervision from the ground. A second docking port also meant long-duration resident crews could receive visitors. Visiting crews often included cosmonaut-researchers from Soviet bloc countries or countries sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Vladimir Remek of Czechoslovakia, the first space traveler not from the US or USSR, visited Salyut 6 in 1978. The station received 16 cosmonaut crews, including six long-duration crews. The longest stay time for a Salyut 6 crew was 185 days. The first long-duration crew stayed for 96 days, beating the 84-day world record for space endurance established in 1974 by the last Skylab crew. The station hosted cosmonauts from Hungary, Poland, Romania, Cuba, Mongolia, Vietnam, and East Germany. Twelve Progress freighters delivered more than 20 tons of equipment, supplies and fuel. An experimental transport logistics spacecraft called Cosmos 1267 docked with Salyut 6 in 1982. The transport logistics spacecraft was originally designed for the Almaz program. Cosmos 1267 proved that large modules could dock automatically with space stations, a major step toward the multimodular Mir station and the International Space Station.
Salyut 6 had six resident crews. On December 10 1977 the first crew, Yuri Romanenko and Georgi Grechko, arrived on Soyuz 26 and remained aboard Salyut 6 for 96 days. On June 15 1978, Vladimir Kovalyonok and Alexander Ivanchenkov (Soyuz 29) arrived and remained on board for 140 days. Vladimir Lyakhov and Valeri Ryumin (Soyuz 32) arrived on February 25 1979 and stayed 175 days. On April 9 1980 Leonid Popov and Valeri Ryumin (Soyuz 35) arrived for the longest stay on Salyut 6, 185 days. A repair mission, consisting of Leonid Kizim, Oleg Makarov, and Gennadiy Strekhalov (Soyuz T3) worked on the space station for 12 days starting on November 27 1980. On March 12 1981 the last crew, Vladimir Kovalyonok and Viktor Savinyikh, arrived and stayed for 75 days. During this time there were also 10 visiting missions, crews which came to bring supplies and make shorter duration visits with the resident crews.