Soyuz TM-3 was the third crewed spaceflight to visit the Soviet
space station 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 ...
, 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 of that expedition. There were three people aboard the spacecraft at launch, including the two man crew of the week-long mission
Mir EP-1, consisting of Soviet cosmonaut
Aleksandr Viktorenko
Aleksandr Stepanovich Viktorenko (; born 29 March 1947) is a Soviet/Russian cosmonaut.
He was selected as a cosmonaut on March 23, 1978, and retired on May 30, 1997. During his active career he had been Commander of Soyuz TM-3, Soyuz TM-8, Soyuz ...
and
Syrian
Muhammed Faris
Muhammed Ahmed Faris ( ar, محمد أحمد فارس, ''Muḥammad ʾAḥmad Fāris''; born 26 May 1951) is a Syrian military aviator. He was the first Syrian and the second Arab in space.
Career
Born in Aleppo, Syria, he was a pilot in the Sy ...
. Faris was the first Syrian to travel to space, and as of June 2021, the only one. The third cosmonaut launched was
Aleksandr Aleksandrov, who would replace one of the long duration crew members
Aleksandr Laveykin of
Mir EO-2. Laveykin had been diagnosed by ground-based doctors to have minor heart problems, so he returned to Earth with the EP-1 crew in
Soyuz TM-2.
Soyuz TM-3 landed near the end of December 1987, landing both members of the EO-2 crew, as well as potential
Buran pilot
Anatoli Levchenko
Anatoly Semyonovich Levchenko (russian: Анатолий Семёнович Левченко; May 5, 1941 – August 6, 1988) was a Soviet Union, Soviet cosmonaut in the Buran programme.
Trained as a test pilot and selected as a cosmonaut on 12 ...
, who had been launched to Mir a week earlier aboard
Soyuz TM-4.
Crew
Mission parameters
*Mass: 7100 kg
*Perigee: 297 km
*Apogee: 353 km
*Inclination: 51.6°
*Period: 91.0 minutes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soyuz TM-03
Crewed Soyuz missions
1987 in spaceflight
1987 in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union–Syria relations
1987 in Syria
Spacecraft which reentered in 1987
Spacecraft launched in 1987