Soyuz TM-16 was the sixteenth expedition to the Russian

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 ...

.The mission report is available here:http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-tm16.htm The

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

crew transports (T - транспортный - Transportnyi - meaning transport, M - модифицированный - Modifitsirovannyi- meaning modified) were fourth generation (1986–2002) Soyuz spacecraft used for ferry flights to the Mir and ISS space stations. It added to the Soyuz-T new docking and rendezvous, radio communications, emergency and integrated parachute/landing engine systems. The new Kurs rendezvous and docking system permitted the Soyuz-TM to maneuver independently of the station, without the station making "mirror image" maneuvers to match unwanted translations introduced by earlier models' aft-mounted attitude control.

Crew

Mission highlights

16th expedition to

. First Soyuz without a probe and drogue docking system since 1976. It carried an APAS-89

androgynous Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often r ...

docking unit different from the APAS-75 unit used for ASTP in 1975, yet similar in general principles. Soyuz-TM 16 used it to dock with an androgynous docking port on the Kristall module. This was a test of the docking system in preparation for dockings by the Space Shuttles with Mir.

References

Crewed Soyuz missions Spacecraft launched in 1993 {{Russia-spacecraft-stub