Mir EO-12 (, also known as Principal Expedition 12) was the twelfth crewed expedition to the

space station A space station (or orbital station) is a spacecraft which remains orbital spaceflight, in orbit and human spaceflight, hosts humans for extended periods of time. It therefore is an artificial satellite featuring space habitat (facility), habitat ...

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 ...

, lasting from July 1992 until February 1993. The crew, consisting of

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

cosmonauts An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserve ...

Anatoly Solovyev Anatoly Yakovlevich Solovyev (; ; alternate spelling "Solovyov"; born 16 January 1948) is a retired Latvian and Soviet Union, Soviet cosmonaut and pilot. Solovyev holds the List of cumulative spacewalk records, world record on the number of extra- ...

and

Sergei Avdeyev Sergei Vasilyevich Avdeyev (Сергей Васильевич Авдеев; born 1 January 1956) is a former Russian engineer and cosmonaut. Avdeyev was born in Chapayevsk, Samara Oblast (formerly Kuybyshev Oblast), Russian SFSR. He graduat ...

launched aboard

Soyuz TM-15 Soyuz TM-15 was the 15th expedition to the 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 st ...

on 27 July 1992 with French Research Cosmonaut

Michel Tognini Michel Ange-Charles Tognini (born 30 September 1949 in Vincennes, France) is a French test pilot, engineer, brigadier general in the French Air Force, and a former CNES and ESA astronaut who served from 1 January 2005 to 1 November 2011 as hea ...

. After remaining on board Mir for just over six months, Solovyev and Avdeyev returned aboard the same spacecraft on 1 February 1993. Their mission focused on geophysics,

materials science Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials sci ...

, biotechnology, astronomy and medical experiments.

set a

Soyuz spacecraft Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraf ...

on orbit endurance record.

Crew

Backup crew

This crew flew the Soyuz TM-16 spacecraft.

Mission highlights

Crew launch and arrival

The Mir EO-12 crew were launched aboard

on 27 July 1992 from the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...

together with

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

spationaut

of France. They were inserted into a 190 x 200 km, 51.6° inclination orbit. After rendezvous manoeuvring they docked they with

in its 405 x 410 km orbit two days later on 29 July. For the next two weeks the scientific work of the EO-11 crew (

Aleksandr Viktorenko Aleksandr Stepanovich Viktorenko (; 29 March 1947 – 9 August 2023) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut. Viktorenko was selected as a cosmonaut on 23 March 1978 and retired on 30 May 1997. He was commander of Soyuz TM-3, Soyuz TM-8, Soyuz T ...

and

Aleksandr Kaleri Aleksandr "Sasha" Yuriyevich Kaleri (; born in Jūrmala, Latvia on 13 May 1956) is a former Russian cosmonaut and veteran of extended stays on the Mir Space Station and the International Space Station (ISS). Kaleri has most recently been in space ...

) continued together with the programme of

Antares Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius. It has the Bayer designation α Scorpii, which is Latinisation of names, Latinised to Alpha Scorpii. Often referred to as "the heart of the scorpion", Antares is flanked by ...

mission. They departed Mir aboard

Soyuz TM-14 Soyuz TM-14 was the 14th expedition to the Mir space station.The full mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-TM14.htm It included an astronaut from Germany, and was the first Russian Soyuz mission after t ...

on 9 August, leaving the EO-12 crew to continue operations.

Mission operations

The EO-12 crew commenced their research programme. On 14 August

Progress M-14 Progress M-14 (), was a Russian uncrewed Progress cargo spacecraft which was launched in 1992 to resupply the Mir space station. The spacecraft was modified to transport the first VDU propulsion unit to Mir. Progress M-14 also carried the sixth V ...

arrived and docked at the

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 ...

port. It carried a 700 kg VDU thruster unit designed to improve

's attitude control capability. On 3 September the two

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

s performed the first of three EVAs to install the VDU on the end of the 14 m long Sofora girder on

. EVAs on 7 and 11 September continued and completed this assignment. On their fourth and final EVA on 15 September the cosmonauts repositioned the

Kurs KURS (1040 kHz) is an AM radio station broadcasting a Spanish-language Catholic radio format. The station is licensed to San Diego, California and is owned by El Sembrador Ministries. KURS is an affiliate of ''ESNE Radio''. ESNE had been he ...

rendezvous and docking system antenna and retrieved experimental samples.

departed on 21 October carrying 150 kg of research material. The Progress M-15 re-supply craft arrived on 29 October and docked at

. The derelict 550 kg Cosmos 1508 satellite passed within 300 m of Mir on 8 November. On 20 November the 16.5 kg MAK-2 satellite, (brought up on Progress M-15) was deployed from the

Mir core module ''Mir'' ( lit. ''Peace'' or ''World''), DOS-7, was the first module of the Soviet/Russian ''Mir'' space station complex, in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001. Generally referred to as either the core module or base block, the module was l ...

experimental airlock. This was produced by the

Moscow Aviation Institute Moscow Aviation Institute () is an engineering research university in Moscow, Russia. It is designated a National Research University. Since its inception the institute has been spearheading advances in aerospace technology both within Russia a ...

to study Earth's

ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...

End of mission and crew departure

Soyuz TM-16 Soyuz TM-16 was the sixteenth expedition to the Russian Space Station Mir.The mission report is available here:http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-tm16.htm The Soyuz-TM crew transports (T - транспортный - Transportnyi - me ...

with its two-man crew (who had served as the EO-12 backup crew) arrived and docked with the lateral APAS-89 port (originally intended for Buran) on

Kristall The Kristall () (77KST, TsM-T, 11F77T) module was the fourth module and the third major addition to ''Mir''. As with previous modules, its configuration was based on the 77K (TKS) module, and was originally named "Kvant 3". It was launched on Ma ...

on 26 January 1993. The EO-12 crew undocked and returned to Earth on 1 February 1993.

References

{{Mir expeditions Mir 1992 in spaceflight 1993 in spaceflight