It was turned into an orbiting camera platform, equipped with an East-German multi-spectral camera for surveying the terrain from altitude. The mission filled a gap between Salyut 4 and Salyut 6 - which was still nine months away. Salyut 6 was going to be equipped with a similar camera.

The mission commander was one of the original Vostok cosmonauts - Valeri Bykovsky (seen on the right in the photograph), who was not actively involved the main Salyut programme, and was not among the ASTP cosmonaut group either - most members of which transferred to Salyut. He was fit, experienced and available - a perfect candidate for the job. He was accompanied by Vladimir Aksyonov - a spacecraft design engineer.

Soyuz 22 is the only piloted Soyuz mission not to have flown in the 51 degree inclination orbital slot. Its orbit was angled at 65 degrees to the equator - like Vostok and Voskhod. The reason was simply to maximise the area available for coverage with the MFK-6 camera, with particular emphasis on coverage of the German Democratic Republic.