| Mir EO-3 | |||||
21 December 1987 11:18 GMT. Landing Date: 1988-12-21 09:57:00. Flight Time: 365.94 days. Alternate Name: Soyuz TM-4 (Manarov, Titov Vladimir). Flight Up: Soyuz TM-4. Flight Back: Soyuz TM-6. Call Sign: Okean (Ocean ). Crew: Manarov, Titov Vladimir. Backup Crew: Kaleri, Volkov Aleksandr. Program: Mir. Of note: Record flight duration. Mir Expedition EO-03 crew of Musa Manarov and Vladimir Titov travelled to Mir aboard Soyuz TM-4 together with test pilot cosmonaut Anatoly Levchenko. Soyuz TM-4 maneuvered through orbits of 168 x 243 km, 255 x 296 km, and 333 x 359 before docking with Mir at 12:51 GMT 23 December. Levchenko returned to earth aboard Soyuz TM-3 together with the EO-2 crew. After nearly a year in space, Manarov and Titov returned on Soyuz TM-6. They undocked at 03:33 GMT 21 December 1989, but revised software installed as a result of the Soyuz TM-5 abort overloaded the spacecraft's computer. The landing planned for 06:48 was aborted. A backup software program was usedand the Soyuz orbital module was retained through retrofire. The crew finally landed safely on December 21, 1988 09:57 GMT, 180 km SE Dzhezkazgan. Narrative (adapted from D S F Portree's Mir Hardware Heritage, NASA RP-1357, 1995) Soyuz TM-4 with the EO-3 crew aboard arrived at Mir on December 23, 1987. Before departing Mir, the EO-2 crew of Romanenko and Alexandrov demonstrated use of EVA equipment to the EO-3 crew. The EO-3 crew delivered biological experiments, including the Aynur biological crystal growth apparatus, which they installed in Kvant. The combined crews conducted an evacuation drill, with the Mir computer simulating an emergency. Soyuz TM-3 departed on 29 December and the crew settled in for their one-year mission. Soyuz TM-4 was flown to the front port of Mir on 30 December, clearing it for the next Progress freighter. Progress 34 arrived at Mir and remained docked from January 23-March 4, 1988. Meanwhile 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. On February 12 the cosmonauts began preparations for an EVA to replace and augment Mir’s solar arrays. They tested their EVA suits February 23-25, and on February 26 they exited the station. The EO-3 crew removed one portion of the array Romanenko and Laveykin had assembled in June 1987. They replaced it with an eight-part array set which increased electricity output by 20% and also tested new solar cell materials and allowed telemetric monitoring of output. They also found time to wipe several of Mir’s portholes, which had accumulated a dusty coating, and extensively photographed Mir’s exterior. The EVA lasted 4 hr, 25 min. On March 17 the cosmonauts studied the effects of noise produced by fans and other equipment on their living quarters as part of the Akustika experiment. During the same period, a Soviet spokesman stated that dust and odours on Mir bothered the cosmonauts. Progress 35 arrived and remained docked to Mir from March 25-May 5, 1988. In late March and early April, Titov and Manarov installed and tested a new telefax system and unspecified equipment to improve communications between Mir and Earth. During May a particle the Soviets identified as a piece of space debris blasted a crater in a two-pane Mir viewport. The damaged area was 6-8 mm across. Progress 36 arrived and docked to Mir's aft port from May 15-June 5, 1988. It was replaced with Soyuz TM-5 on June 9-17, 1988. This brought a Bulgarian cosmonaut to the station. Due to the Soyuz 33 failure, Bulgaria was the only east European Soviet ally not to have had a citizen visit a Soviet space station. Bulgarian cosmonaut-researcher Alexandr Alexandrov, (endlessly confused with the contemporary Soviet cosmonaut of the same name), used nearly 2,000 kg of equipment delivered by Progress freighters to conduct 46 experiments in the Shipka program during his stay. The visiting crew left aboard Soyuz TM-4, leaving the fresh Soyuz TM-5 as a lifeboat. The EO-3 crew flew this from the aft to fore port of Mir on June 18, 1988, leaving the aft port ready for the next Progress freighter. On June 30 the EO-3 crew left Mir via one of the lateral ports for an unrehearsed EVA to replace Kvant’s TTM shadow mask X-ray telescope. They had trained for the EVA by videotape sent up by the Progress 36 supply ship along with needed tools. They also spoke with cosmonauts who had rehearsed the repair in the hydrobasin in Zvezdny Gorodok ('Star City'). In addition to their suits, the EO-3 crew carried 40 kg of tools and equipment between them. Upon reaching the work site, they cut through 20 layers of thermal blanket to reach the Roentgen suite of instruments. The EVA ended unsuccessfully when a wrench needed to remove a clamp snapped. The EVA duration was 5 hr, 10 min. Progress 37 arrived and remained docked to the aft port of Mir from July 20-August 12, 1988. In late July the Altair/SR relay satellite Cosmos 1897 was moved from its station at 95° E to 12° E to support the Buran shuttle test flight of November 14, 1988. Soyuz TM-6 arrived on August 31, 1988. Its crew had a unique makeup, with a commander (Vladimir Lyakhov) who had been trained to fly a Soyuz TM-solo in the event a rescue ship needed to be sent to recover two cosmonauts from Mir, no flight engineer, and two inexperienced cosmonaut-researchers. One was Dr. Valeri Polyakov, who would remain aboard Mir with Titov and Manarov to monitor their health during the final months of their planned year-long stay. The other was Intercosmos cosmonaut Abdul Ahad Mohmand, from Afghanistan. Mohmand’s experiment program was dominated by a series of observations of Afghanistan, called Shamshad. The Lyakhov and Mohmand left their fresh spacecraft docked to Mir as a lifeboat and returned aboard Soyuz TM-5. During the return to Earth, Soyuz TM-5 suffered a combined computer software and sensor problem, which delayed its re-entry by 24 hours. Soyuz TM-6 was flown by the EO-3 crew from the aft to forward crew of Mir on September 8, 1988. Progress 38 then docked and remained at the aft port from September 12-November 23, 1988 On October 20 Titov and Manarov stepped outside Mir, leaving Polyakov in the Soyuz TM-6 descent module. The spacewalkers wore improved spacesuits which did not need an umbilical connection to the station. Using tools delivered by Progress 38, Titov and Manarov removed the old TTM shadow mask X-ray unit and successfully replaced it. They then installed equipment in anticipation of the upcoming Franco-Soviet EVA. The EVA lasted 4 hr, 12 min. Soyuz-TM 7 arrived at Mir on November 28, 1988 on the Franco-Soviet Aragatz mission with French cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chretien (on his second mission to a Soviet space station) and Soviet cosmonauts Alexander Volkov and Sergei Krikalyov. This increased Mir’s population to six. According to Krikalev, this was the 'worst-case scenario' as far as crowding on the station was concerned. Not only were there more cosmonauts than usual aboard Mir; the station was also full of equipment and life support supplies delivered by Progress freighters for the joint Franco-Soviet mission. The crowding was exacerbated because there was no docking port free for a Progress freighter. Therefore, the crew could not use a Progress as a 'pantry' or 'storage room' for the station. The large joint experiment manifest—mostly medical and technology experiments chosen to support the French-led European Space Agency Hermes shuttle project—strained Mir’s electricity supply. The total mass of the experiments was 580 kg. Preparations for the first EVA involving a non-Soviet/non-U.S. space traveller forced the cosmonauts to cut short a TV meeting with diplomats from 47 countries on December 8. On December 9 Chretien and Volkov depressurised the multiport docking adapter and clambered outside Mir. Chretien was first out. He installed handrails, then attached the 15.5 kg Enchantillons experiment rack to the handrails by springs and hooks. He also attached electrical wires leading from the rack to Mir’s power supply. Enchantillons carried five technological experiments with applications to the Hermes shuttle program. Volkov and Chretien then assembled the 240-kg ERA experiment. They attached a mount to handrails on the frustum linking the multiport docking unit to the small-diameter portion of the work compartment. After resolving problems with cables linking ERA to a control panel inside Mir, they attached the folded ERA structure to a support arm on the platform. The structure was designed to unfold to form a flat six-sided structure 1 m deep by 3.8 m across. From inside Mir, Krikalyov commanded the structure to unfold, but to no avail. Volkov then kicked ERA, causing it to unfold properly. According to Krikalyov, taking the ERA outside helped relieve the crowding problems. The EVA lasted 5 hr and 57 min. After the EVA, Titov and Manarov showed Krikalyov, and Volkov the peculiarities of living and working on Mir. On December 15, their 359th day in space, Titov and Manarov officially beat Romanenko’s 326-day single-flight endurance record by the required 10%. On December 19, Soyuz TM-6 was powered up to prepare it for for descent. Manarov, Titov, and Chretien boarded Soyuz TM-6 and undocked at 03:33 GMT 21 December 1989, but revised software installed as a result of the Soyuz TM-5 abort overloaded the spacecraft's computer. The landing planned for 06:48 was aborted. A backup software program was used and the Soyuz orbital module was retained through retrofire. The crew finally landed safely on December 21, 1988 09:57 GMT, under low clouds, in sub-freezing temperatures, 180 km SE Dzhezkazgan. Mir EO-3 Chronology
Bibliography and Further Reading
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