The planned Soyuz mission of Rimantas Stankyavichus

When Levchenko died of a brain tumor just eight months after his space mission, the new Buran back-up crew (Stankyavichus-Zabolotskiy) was again without spaceflight experience. Therefore, LII started pursuing another Soyuz mission, with Stankyavichus as the prime candidate.

The final decision to go ahead with the mission was jointly made in February 1989 by the Ministers of General Machine Building, the Aviation Industry, Public Health, and Defense as well as the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, the head of UNKS (the “military space forces’’), and the President of the Academy of Sciences. The plan was for Stankyavichus to go up with Mir’s EO-6 resident crew (Solovyov – Balandin) aboard Soyuz TM-9 in September 1989 and return a week later with the EO-5 crew (Viktorenko-Serebrov) aboard Soyuz TM-8. Stankyavichus and Zabolotskiy got down to training at Star City in March 1989. At the time, the EO-6 crew was busy performing back-up duties for the EO-5 mission (then scheduled for launch in April 1989), which is why the two LII pilots were temporarily teamed up with the EO-6 back-up crews:

Viktor Afanasyev Gennadiy Manakov

Vitaliy Sevastyanov Gennadiy Strekalov

Rimantas Stankyavichus Viktor Zabolotskiy

As Stankyavichus got down to training, the Mir flight schedule underwent changes that would jeopardize his Soyuz mission. In February, due to delays in the launch of Mir add-on modules, the EO-5 prime and back-up flight engineers had swapped places, with Viktorenko and Balandin now scheduled to go up in April to be replaced by Solovyov and Serebrov in September. That in itself was no problem for Stankyavichus, but in March the Soyuz spacecraft he was supposed to fly in September was seriously damaged during testing in a vacuum chamber at the Baykonur cosmodrome and had to be sent back to NPO Energiya for repairs. This meant that it would not be available as a back-up vehicle for the launch of Soyuz TM-8 in April. As a result, a decision was made that the EO-4 crew (Volkov, Krikalyov, Polyakov) would return to Earth in April and leave Mir behind unmanned until September, when the originally planned EO-5 crew

:> ( II t II Ч Г Hi-L-tjimjdil CCt H. Ин и ■ T. U h iir-irn! I! I! l, Ннн -1i 111 d І" І" Г:Г ^ R Rf., ҐІЕКГ. T Ha h :i ■.і ■■ 11 її П ГГПП E Л 11 JTuH MH II 3 ! ‘I L L l^J1

<> ПИЛі’ІГГІИН S CPPTB.: OTIIIIdKOHi ьчнніиньї и u-к l ил г, і-, ч. ірІ Ын и вжив прок в :i: і – алн mva. игоэин х г. Імйту мь opt нтгь. пгнкн:1 1.1 иНЦМь: "Ын(.’ .

Р GSJTJH нл, Ч: :–|.г,■ к II і:> ні ДП Л I. II Г! DC R ПОР Г 370=11 И ЭЭКПЛЧоА К ЛГГЕЛДЛННІ-‘ ЛКН П Т-АИК ЧїурО:і” Н ■ pnTbkTHL’ ООВ. ЧАОІ НМІ НІ іти-нннн Hy н : і г і і і – н Гіімі ГГС7. На І! п-йо ріі-мін Uk К–‘ ■! н. У-ІЇС’і, ha h’3.qp-ii a? CCF н Ак-влл-нин – іі^н і:i:h: ■ – л» 1 л"аарп lt>S£ г – Я 3 ми:-і-мннн- і. н |||-Н,1 .Ініїим-Н-Гн НІН1ІЛ. Т ІТ-мЛрОНЬ СССР U – ВЧГЛІчнчхи к ‘.L’Lrju xKHj|j.±4-M ДАЙ ПОЛ га ТОЮ Н J II U Г ■±1 " – н и ‘ґчі і hal-hy*. CTAHJItP ‘ЫгЛр1 В – іЗНіі т. л г’Н 4*L ТН у к їм. ч->н н u гОі“ и ГС Л t|]OZ-bT Є СС’Н"

НЕГТНСТр ЬВНВ. СН1ННО.< І^РОНІМ1ЛЄЧІТО-СТЧ *i ^ ‘ IE.1 > 11 д – и m Акіл. чккнп н u ■■■ к СССР’ і-‘/

Anatoliy Zhernavkov (a doctor from TsPK and one-time cosmonaut candidate himself), Stankyavichus, Afanasyev, Sevastyanov, and Yevgeniy Khludeyev (former cosmonaut and head of the TsPK department responsible for survival training, and crew recovery) are shown during sea recovery training in preparation for Soyuz TM-9 (B. Vis files).

(Viktorenko-Serebrov) would be launched on Soyuz TM-8. The ЕО-6/Soyuz TM-9 launch was delayed until February 1990.

At first sight, the only implication for Stankyavichus was that his mission would now take place in February 1990 rather than September 1989. However, because of the postponement, NPO Energiya now refused to fly Stankyavichus, arguing that the Soyuz TM-8 descent capsule would be needed to return 100 kg of additional cargo. In correspondence with MOM and NPO Energiya, LII officials and test pilots as well as the Minister of the Aviation Industry strongly urged to fly Stankyavichus in February 1990 anyway, citing several reasons.

First, the additional cargo could be returned in newly developed ballistic capsules called Raduga that were scheduled to begin flying on Progress spacecraft later in 1990. Second, the February mission possibly was Stankyavichus’ last oppor­tunity to fly for several years. A Japanese journalist was scheduled to fly during the EO-7/EO-8 handover in late 1990 and there was public pressure to fly a Soviet journalist before that during the EO-6/EO-7 handover in the summer of 1990. After that, all Soyuz passenger seats were reserved for foreign cosmonauts until at least 1993, by which time Buran was expected to make its first manned flight. An additional argument for urgency was that Stankyavichus was an ethnic Lithuanian, all this at a time when the spillover from the 1989 upheavals in Eastern Europe began reverberating throughout the Baltic republics. Indeed, Lithuania would become the first Baltic republic to proclaim its renewed independence in March 1990 [68].

Despite the pleas from MAP and LII, Stankyavichus and Zabolotskiy were forced to suspend their training at Star City in September 1989. Both were assigned to conduct one or more approach and landing tests on the BTS-002. Although the two did a preparatory ground run in December 1989, they would not take the vehicle to the skies. Another opportunity for Stankyavichus to get his space legs did present itself during the EO-6/EO-7 handover in August 1990. The third seat on Soyuz TM-10 became available due to delays in the Soviet journalist-in-space project, but for unknown reasons Stankyavichus was not offered the ride. Tragically, Stankyavichus died in a plane crash in Italy in September 1990. With no further Soyuz slots immediately available and the future of Buran ever more hanging in the balance, no further Soyuz familiarization flights were planned for the Buran back-up crew members that replaced him.