Almost immediately after docking at Salyut 7's aft port, the crew entered Kosmos 1443 and commenced transferring the 3.5 tons of cargo lining its walls to Salyut 7.

The Soviets believed it was a member of the Delta Aquariid meteor shower, though it may have been a small piece of orbital debris.

[3] The crew loaded Cosmos 1443's VA capsule with 350 kg of experiment results and hardware no longer in use.

Cosmos 1443 then undocked, in spite of Western predictions that the FGB component would remain attached to Salyut 7 as a space station module.

The VA capsule soft-landed on 23 August 1983, and the FGB component continued in orbit until it was deorbited over the Pacific Ocean on 19 September 1983.