Soyuz TM-4

Soyuz TM-4
COSPAR ID1987-104A Edit this at Wikidata
SATCAT no.18699
Mission duration178 days, 22 hours, 54 minutes, 29 seconds
Orbits completed~2,890
Spacecraft properties
SpacecraftSoyuz 7K-STM No. 54
Spacecraft typeSoyuz-TM
ManufacturerNPO Energia
Launch mass7,070 kilograms (15,590 lb)
Crew
Crew size3
LaunchingVladimir Titov
Musa Manarov
Anatoli Levchenko
LandingAnatoly Solovyev
Viktor Savinykh
Aleksandr Aleksandrov
CallsignOkean (Ocean)
Start of mission
Launch date21 December 1987, 11:18:03 (1987-12-21UTC11:18:03Z) UTC
RocketSoyuz-U2
Launch siteBaikonur 1/5
End of mission
Landing date17 June 1988, 10:12:32 (1988-06-17UTC10:12:33Z) UTC
Landing site180 kilometres (110 mi) SE of Dzhezkazgan
Orbital parameters
Reference systemGeocentric
RegimeLow Earth
Perigee altitude337 kilometres (209 mi)
Apogee altitude357 kilometres (222 mi)
Inclination51.6 degrees
Period91.5 minutes
Docking with Mir[1]
Docking date23 December 1987, 12:51:00 UTC
Undocking date17 June 1988, 06:20:50 UTC
Soyuz programme
(Crewed missions)

Soyuz TM-4 was a crewed Soyuz spaceflight to Mir. It was launched on 21 December 1987, and carried the first two crew members of the third long duration expedition, Mir EO-3. These crew members, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov, 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, who returned to Earth about a week later with the remaining crew of Mir EO-2. Levchenko was a prospective pilot for the Soviet Space shuttle Buran. The purpose of his mission, named Mir LII-1, was to familiarize him with spaceflight.[2]

It was the fourth Soyuz TM 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 as the station's lifeboat. The mission which swapped the spacecraft was known as Mir EP-2, and had a three-person crew.[3]

  1. ^ "Soyuz TM-4". Spacefacts.de. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
  2. ^ "Mir LII-1". Encyclopedia Astronautica. Archived from the original on 30 November 2010. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference EA-EP2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).