Salyut 3 (Salute 3); also known as OPS-2 or Almaz 2) was a Soviet Space Station launched on June 25, 1974. It was the second Almaz military space station, and the first such station to be launched successfully. It was included in the Salyut program to disguise its true military nature. Due to the military nature of the station, the Soviet Union was reluctant to release information about its design, and about the missions relating to the station.

It attained an altitude of 219 to 270 km on launch and NASA reported its final orbital altitude was 268 to 272 km. Only one of the three intended crews successfully boarded and manned the station, brought by Soyuz 14; Soyuz 15 attempted to bring a second crew but failed to dock.

Although little official information has been released about the station, several sources report that it contained multiple Earth-observation cameras, as well as an on-board gun. The station was deorbited, and re-entered the atmosphere on January 24, 1975. The next space station launched by the Soviet Union was the civilian station Salyut 4; the next military station was Salyut 5, which was the final Almaz space station.

Soyuz 14 - On July 4, a little over a week after Salyut 3 was launched, the manned spacecraft Soyuz 14 docked with the station, having been launched the previous day. The crew of Soyuz 14 consisted of Commander Pavel Popoovich and Flight Engineer Yuri Artyukhin. The crew spent 15 days aboard the station.
On July 9, it was reported that the crew activated the Earth-observation cameras, and spent several days taking photos of various locations, including Central Asia. They placed some film in the Earth return capsule. After undocking, Soyuz 14 safely landed on July 19.

Soyuz 15 was launched on August 26, 1974, carrying a two man crew consisting of Commander Gennadi Sarafanov and flight engineer Lev Demin They were intended to be the second crew to man Salyut 3, but they failed to dock, after their Igla rendezvous system on their Soyuz spacecraft malfunctioned, and they were unable to manually dock. Due to the limited battery life of their Soyuz spacecraft, they were deorbited and landed two days after launch. At the time of the spaceflight, Demin was 48 years old, earning him the record for the oldest person to fly in space up to that point. This record was broken the following year, with DekeSlayton's spaceflight as a part of the Apollo-Soyuz test project.