Soyuz TM-2 was a crewed spaceflight to the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

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 ...

, 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 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 o ...

of the Soyuz-TM spacecraft, and the second crewed spaceflight to Mir (the first being Soyuz T-15). The crew of the long duration expedition,

Mir EO-2 Mir EO-2 (also called Mir Principal Expedition 2) was the second long duration expedition to the Soviet space station Mir, and it lasted from February to December 1987. The mission was divided into two parts (sometimes called (a) and (b)), the d ...

, who were launched by TM-2 consisted of Soviet cosmonauts

Yuri Romanenko Yuri Viktorovich Romanenko (russian: Ю́рий Ви́кторович Романе́нко; born 1 August 1944) is a former Soviet cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union (March 16, 1978 and September 26, 1980). Over his career, Yuri Romanenk ...

and

Aleksandr Laveykin Aleksandr Ivanovich Laveykin (russian: Александр Иванович Лавейкин; born April 21, 1951) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut. Biography Born in Moscow, Laveykin was selected as a cosmonaut on December 1, 1978. He flew on one ...

. 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 Mir EO-2 (also called Mir Principal Expedition 2) was the second long duration expedition to the Soviet space station Mir, and it lasted from February to December 1987. The mission was divided into two parts (sometimes called (a) and (b)), the d ...

. 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 (russian: Квант-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 stat ...

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