STS-63
Int. Designation |
1995-004A |
Launched |
3 February 1995 |
Launch Site |
Pad 39B, Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
Landed |
11 February 1995 |
Landing Site |
Runway 15, Shuttle Landing Facility, KSC, Florida |
Launch Vehicle |
OV-103 Discovery/ET-68/SRB BI-070/SSME #1 2035; #2 2109; #3 2029 |
Duration |
8 days 6 hrs 28 min 15 sec |
Call sign |
Discovery |
Objective |
Mir Rendezvous (near-Mir) mission; SpaceHab 3; EVA Development Flight Test |
Flight Crew
WETHERBEE, James Donald, 42, USN, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-32 (1990); STS-52 (1992)
COLLINS, Eileen Marie, 38, USAF, pilot
HARRIS Jr., Bernard Anthony, 38, civilian, mission specialist 1, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-55 (1993)
FOALE, Colin Michael, 38, civilian, mission specialist 2, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-45 (1992); STS-56 (1993)
VOSS, Janice Elaine, 38, civilian, mission specialist, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-57 (1993)
TITOV, Vladimir Georgievich, 48, Russian Air Force, Russian mission specialist 4, 3rd mission
Previous missions: Soyuz T8 (1983); Soyuz T10 launch pad abort (1983); Soyuz TM4 (1987)
Flight Log
As originally planned, Mir should have been visited by the Soviet Space Shuttle Buran but when the first Shuttle finally reached the space complex, it was an American, not a Russian one. The STS-63 mission achieved a number of milestones in space history for both the US and the Russian space programmes, and was another significant step towards cooperative efforts for the forthcoming ISS. With only a five-minute window to rendezvous with Mir, Discovery’s countdown was refined to include additional holding time at the T — 6 hour and T — 9 minute points. The 2 February launch was postponed at T — 1 day when one of the three IMUs on Discovery failed.
Starting on FD 1, a series of thruster burns brought Discovery to a rendezvous with Mir on FD 4. The approach was expected to be as close as 10 metres, but with three of the Shuttle’s 44 RCS thrusters used for small manoeuvres leaking prior to
Astronaut Foale (on the RMS) attempts to grab the SPARTAN 204 as Harris looks on during the first EDFT EVA. The roof of the SpaceHab module is in foreground |
rendezvous, the Russians voiced some concerns and it took some considerable discussions and exchange of technical information to convince them that it was safe to proceed. Wetherbee brought the Shuttle to a station-keeping distance of 122 metres, then closed to about 11.2 metres with the crews excitedly talking to each other. Cosmonaut Titov, who was aboard Discovery, had spent over a year on Mir in the late 1980s and talked extensively with his colleagues on the station. This was the first time American and Russian spacecraft had been this close for almost 20 years and the next step in the schedule was the planned docking of STS-71 in June. For now, the close approach was a useful demonstration of a skill that American astronauts had not used in conjunction with another manned spacecraft since the Apollo era – proximity operations. Discovery was eventually withdrawn back to 122 metres and Wetherbee executed a one-and-a-quarter orbit loop around Mir as the astronauts conducted a detailed photographic survey of the station. On board Mir, the EO-17 crew reported no vibrations or movement of the station’s solar array panels during the manoeuvres. This was an excellent start to Shuttle-Mir operations and is often termed the near-Mir mission.
In addition to the Mir rendezvous, STS-63 featured the usual complement of middeck and payload bay secondary experiments, plus the third flight of SpaceHab. This flight of the commercially-developed augmentation module included 20 experiments, with 11 biotechnology experiments, three advanced materials development experiments, four demonstrations of technology and a pair of hardware experiments supporting acceleration technology. In past flights, crew time was taken up with caretaking the experiments but on this flight, developments in remote monitoring and data transfer reduced direct crew involvement and allowed principle investigators to monitor and control their own experiments. A new robotic device to change samples, called Charlotte, was also flown as an evaluation of automated systems that would allow the crew to focus their efforts on other areas of the flight plan. SPARTAN-204 was lifted out of the cargo bay on FD 2 by the RMS and would study the orbiter glow phenomena and firings of the jet thrusters on the Shuttle. It was later released for a 40-hour free-flight, during which time its Far UV Imaging Spectrograph studied a range of celestial targets in interstellar space.
The SPARTAN was also planned to be used during the EVA towards the end of the mission. The EVA (9 Feb, 4 hours 39 minutes) was the first in a series of EVA Development Flight Test objectives designed to prepare NASA for ISS assembly activities. Harris (EV1) and Foale (EV2) were meant to handle the 1,134kg SPARTAN payload to rehearse ISS assembly techniques for translating large masses, but both astronauts reported feeling cold while at the end of the RMS, despite modifications in their suits to keep them warm when away from the somewhat protected environment of the payload bay. One of the final objectives of STS-63 was to test the revised landing surface at the Shuttle Landing Facility. This was expected to decrease wear on the tyres and give the orbiters a better chance of landing in crosswinds, thus offering a greater range of landing opportunities at the Cape to help maintain processing schedules and to meet the launch windows of a tight manifest. Upon landing, the crew received congratulations from the cosmonauts on Mir. The once-independent US and Russian manned space programmes were beginning to merge into one international programme for ISS and this mission was an important step towards that goal.
Milestones
176th manned space flight 97th US manned space flight 67th Shuttle mission 20th flight of Discovery
31st US and 56th flight with EVA operations
1st orbiter to complete 20 missions
1st approach/fly-around with Mir by US Shuttle
1st female Shuttle pilot
2nd Russian cosmonaut on Shuttle
1st EDFT excursion
3rd SpaceHab mission
1st African American to perform EVA (Harris)
STS-941997-032A 1 July 1997 Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida 17 July 1997 Runway 33, Shuttle Landing Facility, KSC, Florida OV-102 Columbia/ET-86/SRB BI-088/SSME #1 2037; #2 2034; #3 2033 15 days 16hrs 34 min 4 sec Columbia Objective Material Science Laboratory 1 (Re-flight) Flight Crew HALSELL Jr., James Donald, 40, USAF, commander, 4th mission Previous missions: STS-65 (1994); STS-74 (1995); STS-83 (1997) STILL, Susan Leigh, 35, USN, pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-83 (1997) VOSS, Janice Elaine, 40, civilian, mission specialist 1, payload commander, 4th mission Previous missions: STS-57 (1993); STS-63 (1995); STS-83 (1997) GERNHARDT, Michael Landen, 40, civilian, mission specialist 2, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-69 (1995); STS-83 (1997) THOMAS, Donald Alan, 41, civilian, mission specialist 3, 4th mission Previous missions: STS-65 (1994); STS-70 (1995); STS-83 (1997) CROUCH, Roger Keith, 57, civilian, payload specialist 1, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-83 (1997) LINTERIS, Gregory Thomas, 39, civilian, payload specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-83 (1997) Flight Log The 84-day turnaround from the landing of STS-83 to the launch of the re-flight mission, designated STS-94, was a new record and an impressive demonstration of the ability and skills of the processing team. The quick turnaround was in part facilitated by servicing the MSL payloads while still in the payload bay of Columbia. The original STS-94 mission was manifested as a “flight opportunity” by Discovery in October 1998, but as no payload had been assigned to that flight, it was the first available flight number to assign the MSL administration and planning documents to. As the same vehicle, crew and payload would be flying, it was in effect a “paper change” to the flight designation, although a new ET, SRBs and different SSMEs were
assigned to support the new mission. There was a delay to the launch due to unacceptable weather around the SLF. With the crew operating the familiar Red and Blue two-shift system, 33 investigations were completed in the fields of combustion, biotechnology and materials processing. There were 25 primary investigations, four glove box investigations and four accelerometer studies on MSL-1. Some of this work involved evaluating hardware, facilities and procedures in preparation for similar hardware and research programmes that were due to be carried out on ISS. Within the combustion investigations, 144 experiments were planned, and over 200 were actually completed. The TEMPUS electromagnetic containerless processing facility completed over 120 melting cycles of zirconium at temperatures ranging between 340 and 2,000° C. In the “ignition of large fuel droplets” experiment, conducted in the glove box, only 52 test runs were planned, but the crew managed to complete 125 by the end of the mission. There were in excess of 700 crystals of various proteins grown during the 16-day mission and a record number of commands (over 35,000) were sent from the Spacelab Mission Operations Control Center at Marshall Space Flight Center to the MSL-1 experiments. On 2 July, Don Thomas reported sighting the Mir space station as it passed within 100 km of Columbia. Two days later, as America celebrated Independence Day, the crew sent messages of congratulations to the JPL Pathfinder team in California on the successful landing of the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft on the Red Planet. Three days later, the crew were informed of the successful docking of a Russian Progress (M35) re-supply vehicle with Mir and the following day, Halsell, Gernhardt and Voss used the SAREX equipment aboard Columbia to talk with Mike Foale aboard the Mir space station. On 14 July, the crew reported a minute debris impact with one of the overhead windows, a familiar occurrence which again was no cause for concern over safety. Shuttle windows are often hit by small pieces of space debris during orbital flight. Being multi-layer panels, such small impacts are highly unlikely to jeopardise the integrity of the window or the safety of the crew and vehicle. Milestones 199th manned space flight 115th US manned space flight 85th Shuttle mission 23rd flight of Columbia 1st re-flight of same vehicle, payload and crew 15th flight of Spacelab Long Module 11th EDO mission The Fifth Decade: 2001-2006
Flight Crew BRAND, Vance DeVoe, 52, civilian, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: Apollo 18 ASTP (1975); STS-5 (1982) GIBSON, Robert Lee “Hoot”, 37, USN, pilot McNAIR, Ronald Erwin, 33, civilian, mission specialist 1 STEWART, Robert Lee, 41, US Army, mission specialist 2 McCANDLESS, Bruce II, 46, USN, mission specialist 3 Flight Log The first flight of the manned manoeuvring unit apart, this mission offered one rather infamous distinction. Was it STS-10, STS-11 or STS 41-B? It was originally planned as STS-11 but when a military flight, STS-10, was delayed for what would turn out to be a year, STS-11 moved up one slot, becoming what would logically be called STS-10. Instead, it confusingly retained the STS-11 designation, and then NASA confused the numbering system even further by introducing an extraordinary system of nomenclature that would soon have most non-specialist space followers in a real pickle. The “4” in STS 41-B represented the US fiscal year 1984. The “1” represented the Kennedy Space Center launch site (and a “2” would have referred to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where Shuttle missions were expected to launch from beginning in 1986). The “B” stood for the second flight of the 1984 fiscal year. Adding to the confusion was the fact that the mission was the first of the actual 1984 year and that STS-9 was sometimes termed as STS 41-A. Despite these diversions, most attention was focused on the fact that it was to perform one of the last “firsts” in manned space flight – an independent EVA. NASA’s Manned Manoeuvring Unit (MMU) was to be operated by Bruce McCandless, who had helped to develop it and who had waited eighteen years for a space flight.
Lift-off – delayed from 29 January by APU problems – took place on time at 08:00 hrs local time, the only anomaly being the failure of one of the parachutes on each SRB. Orbit was 28.45° inclination and would reach a maximum altitude of 281 km (175 miles). Six-and-a-half orbits later came the first of two deployments of similar Hughes-built satellites. Westar 6 spun out of Challenger’s cargo bay first. Later, its PAM-D perigee motor shut down early, stranding Westar. The failure was widely blamed on the Shuttle. The press had another field day when a small instrumented rendezvous balloon target burst on deployment and they went into anti-Shuttle overkill when the second main satellite, Palapa B2, was also inexplicably stranded in orbit by an identical upper stage failure. Because the wrist joint on the RMS failed, the SPAS free flier would not be deployed either. Astronauts McCandless (EV1) and Robert Stewart (EV2) saved the flight from ignominy when they emerged on 7 February for the first EVA, which featured McCandless’s solo MMU flight. The jocular astronaut flew as far as 100 m (328 ft) from Challenger, as did Stewart when he tried the MMU later. McCandless likened flying the MMU to flying a helicopter at Mach 25. A second MMU unit inside the payload bay was tried out by McCandless on the second EVA the following day. The EVAs lasted 5 hours 55 minutes and 6 hours 17 minutes respectively, and McCandless and Stewart had operated the MMUs for 4 hours 42 minutes. (Unit 2 made two sorties lasting 1 hour 3 minutes, and Unit 3 three flights lasting 3 hours 39 minutes.) The next highlight of the mission of mixed fortune was the first landing back at base, on the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle runway, just 6.4 km (4 miles) from its take-off point. Commander Vance Brand was surprised as he flew over the KSC that the autopilot had taken Challenger to 15,000 m (49,200 ft) and that he was far too high, even for a steep Shuttle descent. All went well, however, despite more than a hint of ground fog and the first bird strike for the Shuttle. Main gear touchdown on runway 15, designated for approaches from the north, came at T + 7 days 23 hours 15 minutes 55 seconds. Milestones 95th manned space flight 41st US manned space flight 10th Shuttle mission 4th flight of Challenger 1st independent EVA using manned manoeuvring unit 1st manned space flight to land at launch site 17th US and 24th flight with EVA operations
Flight Crew KIZIM, Leonid Denisovich, 42, Soviet Air Force, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz T3 (1980) SOLOVYOV, Vladimir Alekseyevich, 37, civilian, flight engineer ATKOV, Oleg Yuryevich, 34, civilian, cosmonaut researcher Flight Log There could not have been much wrong with Salyut 7 that couldn’t be righted, for the next Soviet space mission would be one of sheer endurance. In the cosmonaut researcher’s seat in Soyuz T10, too, was a cardiologist, Oleg Atkov, who had designed a portable ultrasound cardiograph which he would use to monitor crew health throughout the flight. Soyuz lifted off at 17: 07hrs local time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 8 February and docked with Salyut the following day. During the mission, the crew would reach a maximum altitude of 375 km (233 miles) in the 51.6° orbit and two of them would achieve new heights in EVA experience. The EVAs took place much later in the mission, after another Shuttle (STS 41-C) had conducted some unique EVA operations of its own during April. Soon after boarding Salyut, Progress 19 arrived, providing all-important consumables for the long mission, the duration of which was not announced by the Soviets. On 4 April, Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Solovyov and Dr. Atkov were visited by two Soviet and one Indian cosmonaut, and with five Americans aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger also in orbit, eleven people were in space for the first time. The Indian international crew returned to Earth aboard Soyuz T10, leaving the fresh Soyuz T11 attached to Salyut. Progress 20 arrived on 20 April, with a cargo of tools and equipment to enable Kizim and Solovyov to perform EVAs to repair the errant main propulsion unit on the space station. The first of the record six EVAs started on 23 April (after STS 41-C had been launched) and lasted 4 hours 15 minutes. The cosmonauts prepared the exterior for
their series of sorties, including the erection of a work base with the necessary equipment. Three days later, they were at the propulsion end of Salyut starting the repair work during an EVA that would last 4 hours 56 minutes. EVAs on 29 April and 3 May, both lasting 2 hours 45 minutes, completed the repair work at that end of Salyut. In quick succession came the undocking of Progress 20 and the arrival of Progress 21, carrying new solar arrays for the cosmonauts to erect on the outside of Salyut during the first fifth expedition EVA in history, lasting 3 hours 5 minutes. Over 24 m2 (78 ft2) of solar arrays had been added to Salyut. The repaired propulsion system was replenished with propellant from the newly docked Progress 21, which also carried additional equipment, including more for Atkov’s space surgery. When the next Progress, No.22, undocked, it left the rear port free to receive the unique crew of Soyuz T12, who arrived on 18 July and left on 29 July. To the surprise of observers, Kizim and Solovyov made a record sixth EVA on 8 August, lasting 5 hours, to conduct further and unrehearsed repairs to the propulsion unit, having been given detailed instructions from the ground. Another Progress, No.23, arrived later in August and in early September, the three cosmonauts became the space endurance record holders, beating Soyuz T5’s 211 days. Another month in space was still to follow, however, and the return came at T + 236 days 22 hours 49 minutes aboard Soyuz T11, which is the longest three-crew manned space flight. Atkov estimated that he had spent 87 days on medical work while the others had spent 22 hours on EVAs on what was a very productive mission. The crew looked frail and pale lying in reclining chairs close to the capsule after landing, but were nonetheless in good health. Milestones 96th manned space flight 55th Soviet manned space flight 48th Soyuz manned space flight 9th Soyuz T manned space flight New duration record – 236 days 22 hours 1st manned space flight to feature five and six EVAs 8th Soviet and 25th flight with EVA operation Atkov celebrates his 35th birthday in space (9 May) Kizim celebrates his 43rd birthday in space (5 Aug)
Flight Crew MALYSHEV, Yuri Vasilyevich, 42, Soviet Air Force, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz T2 (1980) STREKALOV, Gennady Mikhailovich, 42, civilian, flight engineer, 4th mission Previous missions: Soyuz T3 (1980); Soyuz T8 (1983); Soyuz T10-1 (1983) SHARMA, Rakesh, 35, Indian Air Force, cosmonaut researcher Flight Log The next and eleventh Interkosmos spaceman, Rakesh Sharma, came from India, a country which, like France, had already had close ties with the Soviet Union in the field of unmanned space flight. The Soyuz T11 mission began at 18: 09 hrs local time at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 3 April and docking with Salyut, which was to house a record six crew, came 25 hours 20 minutes later. India’s science programme included detailed Earth resources photography, weightlessness adaptation studies – with Sharma floating in yoga positions – and the possibility of making amorphous metals in space. Sharma and his colleagues, Yuri Malyshev and Gennady Strekalov, came home in Soyuz T10,46 km (29 miles) from Arkalyk at T + 7 days 21 hours 40 minutes. Maximum altitude during the 51.6° flight was 298 km (185 miles). The original FE for this mission had been Rukavishnikov, but he failed his medicals and was replaced by Strekalov. This was a bitter disappointment for Rukavishnikov who had trained for years to work aboard a Salyut space station only to be thwarted several times. In 1971 he was on the Soyuz 10 crew which failed to enter Salyut 1. Then he was assigned to ASTP, flying the dress-rehearsal mission Soyuz 16 in 1974 instead of receiving an assignment to Salyut 4. Finally, in 1979, he failed to dock with Salyut 6 in Soyuz 33. Sadly, he would never make it inside a space station, and did not return to space. Milestones 97th manned space flight 56th Soviet manned space flight 49th Soyuz manned space flight 10th Soyuz T manned space flight 1st flight by an Indian 2nd Soyuz international mission
Flight Crew HAUCK, Frederick Hamilton “Rick”, 47, USN, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-7 (1983); STS 51-A (1984) COVEY, Richard Oswalt, 42, USAF, pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS 51-1 (1985) LOUNGE, John Michael, 38, civilian, mission specialist 1, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS 51-1 (1985) HILMERS, David Carl, 38, USMC, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS 51-J (1985) NELSON, George Driver, 38, civilian, mission specialist 3, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS 41-C (1984); STS 51-C (1985) Flight Log Following the release of the findings of the Rogers Commission into the Challenger disaster in June 1986, NASA was directed to follow nine major recommendations to improve the safety and management of the Space Shuttle programme. The path to recovery was a tortuous one. At first, a re-launch in late 1987 seemed a possibility, or early 1988, or June 1988. Discovery finally and patriotically made it to the pad on 4 July. A successful launch and flight of the Space Shuttle was considered crucial. It was to be the most important manned mission of the US space programme. A failure of any kind could have spelled the death knell of the programme and NASA knew it. No. chances were being taken; so much so that many experienced space watchers reckoned that a few abortive countdowns were going to be unavoidable and once Discovery did take off, it would be an anticlimax, perhaps what NASA wanted. True to form, as the all-veteran crew of STS-26 – a Shuttle first – left the crew quarters on 29 September, looking like astronauts again wearing high-altitude pressure suits, the chances of launching that day were put at 50-50, mainly because the winds at high altitude were not strong enough. The flight computer was programmed
to expect stronger seasonal winds. It was re-programmed during holds caused by other niggling problems and the count stood at T — 9 minutes for 1 hour 38 minutes. The go for launch was suddenly given and people realised that perhaps Discovery was going to get off first time after all. Things went well until it was announced that the count would hold at T — 31 seconds because a problem had been experienced. This proved to be an erroneous switch and at 11: 37 hrs local time, on Challenger’s Pad 39B, America returned to space with a smooth lift-off and ascent. Concern was caused by the sight of flames around the SRBs just before burn out but these were caused by the SSME exhaust being sucked into an aerodynamically low pressure area of the Shuttle stack as it rose at Mach 4. It was all so smooth that observers did indeed feel the anticlimax, a tribute to the launch team under former astronaut Bob Crippen. The STS-26 mission continued on its winning way, performing an OMS burn to circularise the 29.45° orbit at 284 km (176 miles), and deploying the TDRS-C satellite on its IUS upper stage. The crew conducted several science experiments, practiced donning and doffing the ascent/descent suit to see how quickly it could be done in an emergency, and experienced, for a short while, uncomfortably high cabin temperatures of 29°C due to ice blocking a cooling duct. On day four, the crew made a moving tribute to the Challenger Seven, covered live on TV. The flight was also a re-qualification of Discovery within the Return-to-Flight programme. Only the landing remained. The de-orbit and re-entry were routine and Discovery came home in triumph, to a rapturous welcome from observers at Edwards Air Force Base, including Vice President George Bush, landing on runway 17 at T + 4 days 1 hour 0 minutes 11 seconds. The Shuttle was poised for routine operations again but the difference was that even NASA admitted that things could go wrong again, something that before Challenger would have seemed a sacrilege, such was the apparent ease and safety of the system. Milestones 121st manned space flight 56th US manned space flight 26th Shuttle flight 7th flight of Discovery 3rd TDRS deployment mission
Flight Crew VOLKOV, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 40, Soviet Air Force, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz T14 (1985) KRIKALEV, Sergei Konstantinovich, 30, civilian, flight engineer CHRETIEN, Jean-Loup, 50, French Air Force, cosmonaut researcher, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz T6 (1982) Flight Log France’s close ties with the Soviet space programme produced beneficial results, none more so than the Soyuz TM7 mission in which the highest ranking spaceperson, Brigadier General Jean-Loup Chretien would make his second flight on a Soviet spacecraft and be the first non-US and non-Soviet spaceman to walk in space. His 30-day mission would also be considerably longer than the usual seven-day jaunts by foreigners. The longer flight was provided in return for the supply of much French scientific equipment for use by the Soviet crews on Mir, but it was the last to be provided free by the Soviets; the next Frenchman had to pay $12 million. France’s President Mitterand scored a spectacular own goal before the mission by insisting on going to Baikonur to watch the launch, which would therefore have to be delayed four days to 26 November, reducing Chretien’s time in space. Mitterand winged his way in and out of Baikonur on a Concorde with an entourage of such high number and rank that Baikonur’s modest hospitality facilities and traditional prelaunch pomp and circumstance became unmanageable. The result was a chaotic crew walk out in which Mitterand and other officials were bundled about by hordes
of eager bystanders and press, as crew commander Aleksandr Volkov tried to make his traditional speech of dedication of the mission to General Kerim Kerimimov, the president of the state commission. The launch, the 301st from Pad 1 at Baikonur, was spectacularly routine, with the Soyuz booster that had only been rolled out to the fog-bound pad two days previously lighting up the sky at 20:49hrs local time. Once aboard Mir, after the two-day rendezvous flight, Chretien, Volkov and the impassive young flight engineer Sergei Krikalev, got to work with Titov, Manarov and Polyakov, the high point of which was Chretien’s EVA with Volkov on 9 December, three days earlier than planned originally. During the 5 hour 57 minute EVA, Chretien and Volkov deployed an experiment called ERA, provided by France, which comprised folded carbon fibre tubes that could be unfurled to form a cube structure in a test of erectable space structures. The $8 million experiment seemed doomed to failure when it could not be commanded to unfurl and engineers considered jettisoning it. Volkov saved the day – he admitted later – by giving it a hefty kick with his space boot. Both spacemen were utterly exhausted by their efforts. The fruitful French mission ended with Chretien returning to Earth with the record-breakers Titov and Manarov on 21 December, leaving Volkov, Krikalev and the doctor Polyakov to remain until 27 April, to be replaced by the TM8 crew. The fresh Soyuz TM7 craft was moved to the front and Progress 39 linked up on 27 December with New Year supplies. Delays in launching new modules to Mir meant that this crew, like previous ones on Mir, were rather limited in what experiments they could conduct, most of which seemed to focus on the astrophysics telescopes on the Kvant module and Polyakov’s surgery. The crew also spent much of their time repairing balky equipment, particularly environmental control systems which were misbehaving so badly that some electrical equipment was covered in condensation. The module delays and these niggling equipment problems raised concerns over whether Mir, three years old on 20 February 1989, would ever see out its operational life before being declared operational with all four modules. But life went on. Progress 40 replaced No.39 on 12 February, delivering pickled cucumbers by request. A planned EVA by Volkov and Krikalev was cancelled and there were suggestions that Polyakov might remain on Mir with the next crew. When Progress 40 departed on 3 March it remained close to Mir for the cosmonauts to observe a unique experiment in which the unmanned tanker deployed two folding structures, which were unfurled from it by heating electrical wires in its body in a space structures test. Progress 40 was destroyed during a controlled re-entry two days later and was replaced by Progress 41 on 18 March. Meanwhile, on the ground, cosmonauts Aleksandr Viktorenko and Aleksandr Balandin, the latter having replaced Aleksandr Serebrov because of the delays in the launches of the new modules which Serebrov had been trained specifically to operate, were ready to launch on 19 April onboard Soyuz TM8, to replace the crew of TM7 which was to come home with Polyakov on 27 April. Then, on 12 April, the Soviets sprang a surprise, saying that the Soyuz TM7 crew would leave Mir empty for several months. Flying another crew when the new modules were not ready for launch seemed wasteful and leaving Mir empty would save money. So Volkov and Krikalev clocked up a TM7 flight time of 151 days 11 hours 10 minutes, landing on 27 April northeast of Dzhezkazgan, the prime recovery zone, as planned. Polyakov had clocked up 240 days 22 hours 36 minutes flight time, the fourth longest individual space mission. Milestones 122nd manned space flight 66th Soviet manned space flight 59th Soyuz manned space flight 6th Soyuz TM manned space flight 6th Soyuz international mission 1st non-Soviet, non-US crewman to make two space flights 1st non-Soviet, non-US crewman to perform EVA 14th Soviet and 37th flight with EVA operations Volkov celebrates his 41st and Polyakov his 47th birthday (27 Apr) on the day both returned to Earth on TM7 |