Mir EP-3 was a week-long manned

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

to the Soviet

space station A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station i ...

Mir ''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...

, 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 arriv ...

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

Soyuz TM-6 Soyuz TM-6 was a crewed Soyuz (spacecraft), Soyuz spaceflight to ''Mir''.The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-TM6.htm It was launched on 29 August 1988, at 04:23:11 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, ...

. This spacecraft also carried

Valeri Polyakov Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov (russian: Валерий Владимирович Поляков, born Valeri Ivanovich Korshunov, russian: Валерий Иванович Коршунов, 27 April 1942 – 7 September 2022) was a Soviet and Rus ...

, who would stay aboard Mir after the crew of EP-3 returned to Earth in

Soyuz TM-5 Soyuz TM-5 was a crewed Soyuz spaceflight to Mir. It was launched on June 7, 1988, carrying the Mir EP-2 mission's three-person crew. This week-long stay on Mir occurred during the third long-duration Mir expedition, Mir EO-3. The crew of EP-2 r ...

. The crew of EP-3, also known as the Soyuz TM-6 crew, consisted of Soviet cosmonaut

Vladimir Lyakhov Vladimir Afanasyevich Lyakhov (russian: Влади́мир Афана́сьевич Ля́хов; 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. Lya ...

as commander, and the first

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

to visit space,

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

Background

The nine-year

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Soviet ...

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

Glavcosmos Glavkosmos (russian: Главкосмос) is a subsidiary of the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos. On 26 February 1985, the Ministry of General Machine Building of the USSR issued an order that formed the Main Department for the creati ...

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 (russian: Союз 32, ''Union 32'') was a 1979 Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station.The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-32.htm It was the eighth mission to and seventh ...

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

Salyut 6 Salyut 6 (russian: Салют-6; lit. Salute 6), DOS-5, was a Soviet orbital space station, the eighth station of the Salyut programme. It was launched on 29 September 1977 by a Proton rocket. Salyut 6 was the first space station to receiv ...

, called

Salyut 6 EO-3 The ''Salyut'' programme (russian: Салют, , meaning "salute" or "fireworks") was the first space station programme, undertaken by the Soviet Union. It involved a series of four crewed scientific research space stations and two crewed ...

. 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 to ...

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

Salyut 7 Salyut 7 (russian: Салют-7; en, Salute 7) (a.k.a. DOS-6, short for Durable Orbital Station) 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 vi ...

, which was called

Salyut 7 EO-2 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 to ...

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

. 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 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. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the entr ...

, 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