Soyuz TM-18

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Overview

Destination: Low Earth Orbit
Mission: Human Exploration

Low Earth Orbit 1/5 Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

Soyuz TM-18 was the 18th mission and the 15th long-duration expedition to Mir space station. The mission began on January 8, 1994, 10:05:34 UTC, launching Commander Viktor Afanasyev, Flight Engineer Yury Usachov and Research Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov into orbit. They docked with Mir two days later. During their stay there, cosmonauts carried out various scientific experiments in medicine, material sciences, astrophysics etc. Station crew was visited by several Progress resupply spacecrafts, and welcomed aboard the Soyuz TM-19 crew. The mission concluded with a safe landing back on Earth on July 9, 1994, 10:32:35 UTC.

Soyuz-U

Family: Soyuz-U
Configuration: 2

The Soyuz-U2 was a Soviet, later Russian, carrier rocket. It was derived from the Soyuz-U, and a member of the R-7 family of rockets. It featured increased performance compared with the baseline Soyuz-U, due to the use of syntin propellant, as opposed to RP-1 paraffin, used on the Soyuz-U.

Specifications
  • Stages
    2
  • Length
    34.54 m
  • Diameter
    2.95 m
  • Fairing Diameter
  • Launch Mass
    298 T
  • Thrust
Family
  • Name
    Soyuz-U
  • Family
    Soyuz-U
  • Variant
    2
  • Alias
  • Full Name
    Soyuz-U2
Payload Capacity
  • Launch Cost
  • Low Earth Orbit
    7050 kg
  • Geostationary Transfer Orbit
  • Direct Geostationary
  • Sun-Synchronous Capacity

Soyuz TM-18


Active Human Rated Crew On-board: 3 Crew Capacity: 3
Destination: Mir
Serial Number: Soyuz TM 11F732A51 #67

Soyuz TM-18 was a Soyuz spacecraft which launched on 8 January 1994 10:05 UTC. It transported three members of the Expedition 15 crew to Mir. The crew consisted of Viktor Afanasyev, Yury Usachov, and Valeri Polyakov.

Soyuz Details

Crew


Viktor Afanasyev

Commander - Russian - ( RFSA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: Dec. 31, 1948
Age: 74

Valeri Polyakov

Research Cosmonaut - Russian - ( RFSA )

Status: Deceased

Date of Birth: April 27, 1942
Date of Death: Sept. 19, 2022

Yury Usachov

Flight Engineer - Russian - ( RFSA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: Oct. 9, 1957
Age: 65

Soviet Space Program

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Founded: 1931 Successes: 2285 Failures: 168 Pending: 0

Agency Type: Government

The Soviet space program, was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) actived from 1930s until disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union's space program was mainly based on the cosmonautic exploration of space and the development of the expandable launch vehicles, which had been split between many design bureaus competing against each other. Over its 60-years of history, the Russian program was responsible for a number of pioneering feats and accomplishments in the human space flight, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile (R-7), first satellite (Sputnik 1), first animal in Earth orbit (the dog Laika on Sputnik 2), first human in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1), first woman in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6), first spacewalk (cosmonaut Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2), first Moon impact (Luna 2), first image of the far side of the Moon (Luna 3) and unmanned lunar soft landing (Luna 9), first space rover (Lunokhod 1), first sample of lunar soil automatically extracted and brought to Earth (Luna 16), and first space station (Salyut 1). Further notable records included the first interplanetary probes: Venera 1 and Mars 1 to fly by Venus and Mars, respectively, Venera 3 and Mars 2 to impact the respective planet surface, and Venera 7 and Mars 3 to make soft landings on these planets.

WIKI

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

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