Soyuz TM-4 was a crewed

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз (Russian language, Russian and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Soviet Union, Union of Soviet Socialist Republi ...

spaceflight to

Mir ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...

. It was launched on 21 December 1987, and carried the first two crew members of the third long duration expedition, Mir EO-3. These crew members, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov, would stay in space for just under 366 days, setting a new spaceflight record. The third astronaut launched by Soyuz TM-4 was Anatoli Levchenko, who returned to Earth about a week later with the remaining crew of Mir EO-2. Levchenko was a prospective pilot for the Soviet Space shuttle '' Buran''. The purpose of his mission, named

Mir LII-1 The ''Buran'' programme (, , "Snowstorm", "Blizzard"), also known as the "VKK Space Orbiter programme" (), was a Soviet Union, Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft project that began in 1974 at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute in ...

, was to familiarize him with spaceflight. It was the fourth

Soyuz TM The Soyuz TM () were fourth generation (1986–2002) Soyuz spacecraft used for ferry flights to the Mir and ISS space stations. The Soyuz spacecraft consisted of four parts, the Orbital Module, the Descent Module and the Service Module. The fi ...

spacecraft to be launched ( one of which was uncrewed), and like other Soyuz spacecraft, it was treated as a lifeboat for the station's crew while docked. In June 1988, part way through EO-3, Soyuz TM-4 was swapped for Soyuz TM-5 as the station's lifeboat. The mission which swapped the spacecraft was known as

Mir EP-2 Mir EP-2 was a visiting expedition to the Mir space station conducted in June 1988 by cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev, Viktor Savinykh and Aleksandr Aleksandrov. Launched aboard the Soyuz TM-5 spacecraft, the crew spent ten days in space before ret ...

, and had a three-person crew.

Crew

Titov and Manarov were members of the long duration mission Mir EO-3, and returned to Earth just over a full year later, in

Soyuz TM-6 Soyuz TM-6 was a crewed Soyuz spaceflight to '' Mir''. It was launched on 29 August 1988, at 04:23:11 UTC, for the station's third long-duration expedition, Mir EO-3. The three-person crew that was launched consisted of Research Doctor Valeri ...

. Levchenko, on the other hand, returned to Earth about a week later in

Soyuz TM-3 Soyuz TM-3 was the third crewed spaceflight to visit the Soviet space station Mir, following Soyuz T-15 and Soyuz TM-2. It was launched in July 1987, during the long duration expedition Mir EO-2, and acted as a lifeboat for the second segment ...

. In June 1988, Soyuz TM-4 landed the three-man crew of

, after their 9-day stay on the station; that crew included the second

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

n astronaut Aleksandr Panayotov Aleksandrov.

Backup crew

Mission parameters

*Mass: 7070 kg *Perigee: 337 km *Apogee: 357 km *Inclination: 51.6° *Period: 91.5 minutes

Mission highlights

Fourth crewed spaceflight to

. Manarov and Titov (known by their callsign as the "Okeans") replaced Romanenko and Alexandrov. Anatoli Levchenko was a cosmonaut in the Buran shuttle program. Levchenko returned with Romanenko and Alexandrov in

. Before departing Mir, Romanenko and Alexandrov demonstrated use of EVA equipment to the Okeans. The Okeans delivered biological experiments, including the Aynur biological crystal growth apparatus, which they installed in

Kvant-1 Kvant-1 (; English: Quantum-I/1) (37KE) was the first module to be attached in 1987 to the Mir Core Module, which formed the core of the Soviet space station ''Mir''. It remained attached to ''Mir'' until the entire space station was deorbited i ...

. The combined crews conducted an evacuation drill, with the Mir computer simulating an emergency. Titov and Manarov conducted part of an ongoing survey of galaxies and star groups in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum using the Glazar telescope on Kvant. The survey required photography with exposure times up to 8 min. Even small cosmonaut movements could shake the complex. This produced blurring of astronomical images, so all cosmonaut movements had to be stopped during the exposures.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soyuz TM-04 Crewed Soyuz missions 1987 in spaceflight 1987 in the Soviet Union Bulgaria–Soviet Union relations Spacecraft which reentered in 1988 Spacecraft launched in 1987