Mir EP-3 was a week-long crewed

spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly objects, usually spacecraft, into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such ...

to the Soviet

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 ...

, during the long-duration expedition

Mir EO-3 Mir EO-3 (also called Mir Principal Expedition 3) was an expedition to the space station Mir. The crew consisted of 3 people, Musa Manarov (Commander), Vladimir Titov (Flight Engineer) and Valeri Polyakov (Research Doctor). Manarov and Titov arr ...

. It was the sixth crewed spaceflight to Mir, and was launched with the spacecraft

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 ...

. This spacecraft also carried

Valeri Polyakov Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov (, ; born Valeri Ivanovich Korshunov []; 27 April 1942 – 7 September 2022) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut. He is the record holder for the Timeline of longest spaceflights, longest single stay in space, stay ...

, who would stay aboard Mir after the crew of EP-3 returned to Earth in Soyuz TM-5. The crew of EP-3, also known as the Soyuz TM-6 crew, consisted of Soviet cosmonaut

Vladimir Lyakhov Vladimir Afanasyevich Lyakhov (; ; 20 July 1941 – 19 April 2018) was a Ukrainian Soviet cosmonaut. He was selected as cosmonaut on 5 May 1967, and retired on 7 September 1994. Lyakhov was the Commander on Soyuz 32, Soyuz T-9, and Soyuz TM-6, ...

as commander, and the first

Afghan Afghan or Afgan may refer to: Related to Afghanistan *Afghans, historically refers to the Pashtun people. It is both an ethnicity and nationality. Ethnicity wise, it refers to the Pashtuns. In modern terms, it means both the citizens of Afghanist ...

to visit space,

Abdul Ahad Mohmand Abdul Ahad Momand (; born 1959) is an Afghan-German and former Afghan Air Force aviator who became the first, and currently only, Afghan astronaut to journey to outer space. He became one of Soyuz TM-6 crew members and spent nine days aboard ...

Background

The nine-year

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic o ...

was coming to a close, with the final troop withdrawal starting in May 1988. It was decided by the

Glavcosmos Glavkosmos () is a Russian launch service provider and subsidiary of the State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos". In the Soviet Union, Glavkosmos was the prime authority for implementing cooperative agreements with foreign bodies, wi ...

chairman that the Afghan's spaceflight would be moved earlier than originally planned, so that it would occur before the Soviet military completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Crew

Lyakhov had been on two spaceflight before, both of which were long-duration missions. The first was launched and landed with the spacecraft

Soyuz 32 Soyuz 32 (, ''Union 32'') was a 1979 Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the eighth mission to and seventh successful docking at the orbiting facility. The Soyuz 32 crew was the third long-duration crew to man the sp ...

, and lasted for 175 days; it was the third long-duration expedition on the space station

Salyut 6 Salyut 6 () was a Soviet orbital space station, the eighth station of the Salyut programme, and alternatively known DOS-5 as it was the fifth of the Durable Orbital Station series of civilian space stations. It was launched on 29 September 19 ...

, called Salyut 6 EO-3. His second spaceflight was launched and landed with the spacecraft

Soyuz T-9 Soyuz T-9 (Russian: Союз Т-9, Union T-9) was the 4th expedition to Salyut 7 following the failed docking of Soyuz T-8. It returned lab experiments to Earth. The next mission, Soyuz 7K-ST No.16L (Soyuz 10a), had exploded and thus failed t ...

, and lasted for 145 days; it was the second long-duration expedition aboard the space station

Salyut 7 Salyut 7 (), also known as DOS-6 (Durable Orbital Station 6) was a space station in low Earth orbit from April 1982 to February 1991. It was first crewed in May 1982 with two crew via Soyuz T-5, and last visited in June 1986, by Soyuz T-15. Va ...

, which was called Salyut 7 EO-2.

Mission highlights

Mohmand's main objective was to photograph and make observations of Afghanistan from space. These photographs would be used to map the country's inaccessible mountainous regions, assess water and glacial run-off, as well as to find possible sources of oil and gas in lowland regions.

Problems during descent

Lhakhov and Mohmand depart Mir on 6 September in Soyuz TM-5. Even though the TM-5 spacecraft had only been launched a few months earlier, for

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 ...

, it was thought to be better to leave the resident crew with the most recent Soyuz spacecraft. During descent they suffered a computer software problem combined with a sensor problem. The deorbit engine on the TM-5 spacecraft which was to propel them into

atmospheric reentry Atmospheric entry (sometimes listed as Vimpact or Ventry) is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. Atmospheric entry may be ''uncontrolled entry ...

, did not behave as expected. During an attempted burn, the computer shut off the engines prematurely, believing the spacecraft was out of alignment. Lyakhov determined that they were not, in fact, out of alignment, and asserted that the problem was caused by conflicting signals picked up by the alignment sensors caused by solar glare. With the problem apparently solved, the engines were restarted two orbits later but soon shut off again. The flight director decided that they would have to remain in orbit an extra day (a full revolution of the Earth), so they could determine what the problem was. During this time it was realised that during the second attempted engine burn, the computer had tried to execute the program which was used to dock with Mir several months earlier during EP-2. After reprogramming the computer, the next attempt was successful, and the crew safely landed on 7 September.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mir EP-3 Mir 1988 in the Soviet Union Afghanistan–Soviet Union relations 1988 in spaceflight