Soyuz TM-6

Soyuz TM-6 was the sixth crewed spacecraft to visit the Soviet Space Station Mir.[2] It was launched in August 1988, during the station's third long-duration expedition, Mir EO-3. The three-person crew that was launched consisted of Research Doctor Valeri Polyakov, who became part of the EO-3 crew, as well as the two crew members of the week-long mission Mir EP-3, which included the first ever Afghan cosmonaut, Abdul Ahad Mohmand.

Soyuz TM-6
COSPAR ID1988-075A
SATCAT no.19443
Mission duration114 days, 5 hours, 33 minutes, 49 seconds
Orbits completed~1,840
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft typeSoyuz-TM
ManufacturerNPO Energia
Launch mass7,070 kilograms (15,590 lb)
Crew
Crew size3
LaunchingVladimir Lyakhov
Valeri Polyakov
Abdul Mohmand
LandingVladimir Titov
Musa Manarov
Jean-Loup Chrétien
CallsignПрото́н (Proton)
Start of mission
Launch dateAugust 29, 1988, 04:23:11 (1988-08-29UTC04:23:11Z) UTC[1]
RocketSoyuz-U2
Launch siteBaikonur 1/5
End of mission
Landing dateDecember 21, 1988, 09:57:00 (1988-12-21UTC09:58Z) UTC
Landing site[1] 160 kilometres (99 mi) SE of Dzhezkazgan
Orbital parameters
Reference systemGeocentric
RegimeLow Earth
Docking with Mir
Soyuz programme
(Crewed missions)
 

On September 8, Soyuz TM-6 was undocked from Mir's Kvant port and redocked onto the Mir Base Block's port.[3] It remained there until December, when it brought Titov and Manarov of the EO-3 crew back to Earth. It also landed French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien, ending his week-long spaceflight which started with Soyuz TM-7.

Crew

Position Launching crew Landing crew
Commander  Vladimir Lyakhov
Mir EP-3
Third spaceflight
 Vladimir Titov
Mir EO-3
Third spaceflight
Research Doctor/Flight Engineer  Valeri Polyakov
Mir EO-3 / Mir EO-4
First spaceflight
 Musa Manarov
Mir EO-3
First spaceflight
Research Cosmonaut  Abdul Mohmand
Mir EP-3
First spaceflight
 Jean-Loup Chrétien
Mir Aragatz
Second spaceflight

Dr. Valeri Polyakov remained behind on Mir with cosmonauts Musa Manarov and Vladimir Titov when Mohmand and Lyakhov returned to Earth in Soyuz TM-5.

Its crew had a unique makeup, with a commander (Vladimir Lyakhov) who had been trained to fly a Soyuz-TM solo in the event a rescue ship needed to be sent to recover two cosmonauts from Mir, no flight engineer, and two inexperienced cosmonaut-researchers. One was Dr. Valeri Polyakov, who would remain aboard Mir with Titov and Manarov to monitor their health during the final months of their planned year-long stay. The other was Intercosmos cosmonaut Abdul Ahad Mohmand, from Afghanistan.

Mission parameters

References

  1. "Mir EO-3". Encyclopedia Astronautica. Archived from the original on 29 November 2010. Retrieved 15 November 2010.
  2. The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-TM-6.htm
  3. D.F.S.Portree (1995). "Mir Hardware Heritage" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 September 2009. Retrieved 15 November 2010.
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