Soyuz TM-2 was a crewed spaceflight to the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of 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 ...

, which was uncrewed at the time. TM-2 was launched on February 5, 1987, and it was first 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 ...

of 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 ...

spacecraft, and the

second The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...

crewed spaceflight to Mir (the first being

Soyuz T-15 Soyuz T-15 (, ''Union T-15'') was a crewed mission to the Mir and Salyut 7 space stations and was part of the Soyuz programme. It marked the final flight of the Soyuz-T spacecraft, the third generation Soyuz spacecraft, which had been in service ...

). The crew of the long duration expedition, Mir EO-2, who were launched by TM-2 consisted of Soviet cosmonauts

Yuri Romanenko Yuri Viktorovich Romanenko (; born 1 August 1944) is a former Soviet Union, Soviet cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union (March 16, 1978 and September 26, 1980). Over his career, Yuri Romanenko spent a total of 430 days 20 hours 21 minutes 3 ...

and Aleksandr Laveykin. The spacecraft remained docked to Mir, functioning as a lifeboat for the EO-2 crew, until July 1987 when it returned to Earth carrying Laveykin and the two man crew of Mir EP-1. Romanenko later returned to Earth 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 ...

at the end of EO-2.

Crew

Mission parameters

*Mass: 7100 kg *Perigee: 341 km *Apogee: 365 km *Inclination: 51.6° *Period: 91.6 minutes

Mission highlights

Early in the expedition EO-2, the module

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 ...

was launched to automatically dock with Mir. The docking system, known as the "Igla system", was not behaving as expected. On April 5 the EO-2 crew retreated to the Soyuz TM-2 spacecraft so that they could escape in the event the module got out of control. About 200 m out, the docking system lost its lock on Mir's aft port antenna. The cosmonauts watched from within Soyuz TM-2 as the Kvant/ FSM combination passed within 10 m of the station. Following an emergency spacewalk, Kvant fully docked to the station on April 11.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soyuz TM-02 Crewed Soyuz missions 1987 in spaceflight 1987 in the Soviet Union Spacecraft which reentered in 1987 Spacecraft launched in 1987