Soyuz TM-4 was a crewed

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз (Russian and Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалис� ...

spaceflight to

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 ...

. It was launched on 21 December 1987, and carried the first two crew members of the third 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 ...

. These crew members,

Vladimir Titov Vladimir Georgiyevich Titov (russian: Владимир Георгиевич Титов; born 1 January 1947 in Sretensk, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia) is a retired Russian Air Force Colonel and former cosmonaut. He has participated in four spaceflig ...

and

Musa Manarov Musa Khiramanovich Manarov ( lbe, Муса Хираманович Манаров; born March 22, 1951, in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR) is a former cosmonaut who spent 541 days in space. He was a colonel in the Soviet Air Force and graduated from the Mos ...

, would stay in space for just under 366 days, setting a new spaceflight record. The third astronaut launched by Soyuz TM-4 was

Anatoli Levchenko Anatoly Semyonovich Levchenko (russian: Анатолий Семёнович Левченко; May 5, 1941 – August 6, 1988) was a Soviet cosmonaut in the Buran programme. Trained as a test pilot and selected as a cosmonaut on 12 July 1980, Le ...

, who returned to Earth about a week later with the remaining crew of

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 ...

. Levchenko was a prospective pilot for the Soviet Space shuttle '' Buran''. The purpose of his mission, named

Mir LII-1 The ''Buran'' program (russian: Буран, , "Snowstorm", "Blizzard"), also known as the "VKK Space Orbiter program" (russian: ВКК «Воздушно-Космический Корабль», lit=Air and Space Ship), was a Soviet Union, Sovi ...

, was to familiarize him with spaceflight. It was the fourth

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

spacecraft to be launched ( one of which was uncrewed), and like other Soyuz spacecraft, it was treated as a lifeboat for the station's crew while docked. In June 1988, part way through EO-3, Soyuz TM-4 was swapped for

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 ...

as the station's lifeboat. The mission which swapped the spacecraft was known as

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 ...

, and had a three-person crew.

Crew

Titov and Manarov were members of the long duration mission

, and returned to Earth just over a full year later, in

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, ...

. Levchenko, on the other hand, returned to Earth about a week later 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 ...

. In June 1988, Soyuz TM-4 landed the three-man crew of

, after their 9-day stay on the station; that crew included the second

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

n astronaut

Aleksandr Panayotov Aleksandrov Aleksandr Panayotov Aleksandrov ( bg, Александър Панайотов Александров) (born December 1, 1951) is a retired Bulgarian cosmonaut. He is the second Bulgarian to have flown to space, behind Georgi Ivanov (cosmonaut), G ...

Backup crew

Mission parameters

*Mass: 7070 kg *Perigee: 337 km *Apogee: 357 km *Inclination: 51.6° *Period: 91.5 minutes

Mission highlights

Fourth crewed spaceflight to

. Manarov and Titov (known by their callsign as the "Okeans") replaced Romanenko and Alexandrov. Anatoli Levchenko was a cosmonaut in the Buran shuttle program. Levchenko returned with Romanenko and Alexandrov in

. Before departing Mir, Romanenko and Alexandrov demonstrated use of EVA equipment to the Okeans. The Okeans delivered biological experiments, including the Aynur biological crystal growth apparatus, which they installed in

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 stati ...

. The combined crews conducted an evacuation drill, with the Mir computer simulating an emergency. Titov and Manarov conducted part of an ongoing survey of galaxies and star groups in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum using the Glazar telescope on Kvant. The survey required photography with exposure times up to 8 min. Even small cosmonaut movements could shake the complex. This produced blurring of astronomical images, so all cosmonaut movements had to be stopped during the exposures.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soyuz TM-04 Crewed Soyuz missions 1987 in spaceflight 1987 in the Soviet Union Bulgaria–Soviet Union relations Spacecraft which reentered in 1988 Spacecraft launched in 1987