The second space station of the second generation - Salyut 7 - was launched to orbit. It didn't have as many manned flight to it, but it had record-longest crew stays in space, more than 200 days. Living in space, conducting science research on low Earth orbit began to become routine. Salyut 7 had 13 EVAs and spent on orbit more than 8 years. It also had a spectacular failure, which required a repair crew to be sent to it to revive. Salyut 7 had dockings of heavy TKS 3 and TKS 4 spaceships, and this time crew aboard the station worked with those large spaceships. Some more international astronauts visited the station.
The Salyut 7 was the last second generation space station. Not only more new activities were attempted on the station, but previously known ones became more routine. It seemed that this architecture has given all it could to productive use of space, life aboard of the space laboratory and flexible use of it, and the next big step should happen with extending the single-module station by additional modules, launched separately.
The Salyut stations all were launched by Proton rocket, utilizing the available mass and volume this rocket could carry. For many decades humanity didn't have typical payload capabilities much more than 20 tons, 4 meter diameter, and from 1980s to well into 21st century the space stations were built under this limitation. The exceptions - Skylab launched with Saturn V, Polyus and Buran, launched with Energia - were rare. The 20 tons standard proved quite adequate for long missions on low Earth orbit. Salyut stations significantly contributed to space science and technology, and were a good stepping stone for what comes next.