Soyuz TM-25

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Mission emblem
Mission emblem
Mission dates
Mission: Soyuz TM-25
COSPAR-ID : 1997-003A
Spacecraft: Soyuz 7K-ST ( GRAY index  11F732)
serial number 74
Dimensions: 7150 kg
Launcher: Soyuz U (GRAY index 11A511U)
Call sign: Си́риус (" Sirius ")
Crew: 3 started
2 landed
Begin: February 10, 1997, 14:09:30  UTC
Starting place: Baikonur 1/5
Space station: Me
Coupling: February 12, 1997, 15:51:13 UTC
Decoupling: August 14, 1997, 08:55:58 UTC
Landing: August 14, 1997, 12:17:10 UTC
Landing place: 168 km SE of Sheqasghan
46 ° 46 ′  N , 69 ° 42 ′  E
Flight duration: 184d 22h 7min 40s
Earth orbits: 2950
Rotation time : 90.3 min
Apogee : 394 km
Perigee : 387 km
Team photo
The crew on the launch pad
The crew on the launch pad
◄ Before / After ►
Soyuz TM-24
(manned) 		Soyuz TM-26
(manned)

Soyuz TM-25 is the mission name for the flight of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the Russian Mir space station . The 30th visit by a spaceship to the Mir space station was the 25th visit by a Soyuz spaceship and the 101st flight in the Russian Soyuz program.

crew

Starting crew

Substitute team

Return crew

Mission history

Soyuz TM-25 launched with Ziblijew, Lasutkin and Ewald on board on February 10, 1997, and docked with Mir two days later. The three space travelers were welcomed on board by the regular crew EO-22 Valeri Korsun and Alexander Kaleri , as well as by NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger , who was a participant in the Shuttle Mir program .

The used by the ground station ignition key of the rocket is in the autumn of 2018 in the special 40 years German in space. Two countries, eleven astronauts, one hundred objects from the German Museum of Technology in Berlin .

The overlap of the two expeditions was about 18 days. On February 23, 1997, a fire broke out on board the Mir in a defective air purification system, but it was extinguished.

On March 2, Korsun and Kaleri left the space station with Ewald and returned to Earth with Soyuz TM-24 .

On March 4th, a new approach and coupling procedure of the TORU approach system was tested. For this purpose, the Freighter Progress M-33 , which was loaded with garbage and had been uncoupled since February 6, was supposed to dock again with the Mir. Ziblijew flew the progress with the TORU hand control while he saw the camera image of the freighter on a monitor. The procedure got out of control, the freighter flew just past the space station, but a collision could be avoided.

From May 17-22, 1997, the STS-84 shuttle was coupled with seven US astronauts. Linenger was replaced by Michael Foale .

On June 25, 1997 the unmanned freighter Progress M-34 , which had arrived on April 8, was transferred from one docking port to another. Ziblijew flew the Progress again with the TORU hand control. Distance and speed could only be estimated inadequately with the black and white image, because the Mir was against the cloudy background of the earth, and there was a short image loss, so that the freighter was brought to too high a speed. Progress M-34 collided with the solar cell boom of the Spektr module of the space station. This created a leak in the outer shell and the air pressure in the entire space station dropped.

Ziblijew, Lasutkin and Foale did not get to safety in their Soyuz spaceship, but hermetically sealed the module within a few minutes, whereby they had to cut some cables. This prevented the station from having to be abandoned.

The solar cells of the Spectrum module were the main supplier for the Mir energy supply, especially for the Kristall and Priroda modules , which did not have their own solar cells. The station tumbled as a result of the impact, so that the remaining solar cells were no longer aligned with the sun. This drained the batteries quickly. The lack of ventilation meant that the life of the three crew members was still acute, even after the collision, because a deadly CO 2 cloud can form around the body when exhaling in weightlessness . The ground station managed to counteract the tumbling by igniting the attitude control thrusters. The three cosmonauts then brought the station into the correct position by igniting the Soyuz thrusters. This happened without the support of the ground station because the Mir was no longer in radio contact. It took about 48 hours until the station was fully operational again, with the exception of the sealed off Spektr module. However, a lot of condensation had collected in the cold modules.

It was not possible for the Mir crew to temporarily route the severed power lines through the closed hatch. For this purpose, special adapters were constructed in Russia, which the Freighter Progress M-35 delivered on July 7th. In order to install the adapter, it was necessary to open the access to the Spektr module. This in turn required that the station should be evacuated and that work should be done in spacesuits. In addition to this repair, an exit was also planned in order to be able to examine the damage directly. Since Commander Zibliev suffered from cardiac arrhythmias, Foale was to leave the Mir in his place, together with flight engineer Lasutkin. Two days before the scheduled appointment, Lasutkin pulled cables between the modules late in the evening so that the hatches could be closed during the exit. Overtired, he did this in the wrong order, which put the position control of the space station and thus the energy supply out of operation. The flight control decided to cancel the disembarkation and to have it carried out later by the next crew.

Soyuz TM-26 docked on August 5, 1997 and brought in Anatoly Solowjow and Pawel Winogradow, the new crew that had been specially prepared for the upcoming repair work. The Frenchman Léopold Eyharts was not on board , whose research assignment Mir-Pégase had been postponed in order to be able to transport additional material.

On August 14, 1997, Ziblijew and Lasutkin returned to Earth with Soyuz TM-25. They had spent 184 days in space.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Torsten Harmsen: Fraternization in All In: Berliner Zeitung , September 20, 2018, p. 17 (print edition).
  2. ^ Fire on Russian Space Station Doused, but Raises Concern. New York Times, February 25, 1997, accessed February 25, 2016 .
  3. ^ A b Clay Morgan: Fire and Controversy. In: Mir Space Station. NASA, accessed February 25, 2016 .
  4. ^ NASA: C. Michael Foale. (PDF) In: NASA Oral History. P. 26 , accessed on February 28, 2016 (English): "When Vasily did the collision, we also had a data dropout for about five, ten seconds"
  5. ^ NASA: Progress Collision with Mir Animation. In: Shuttle-Mir: The US and Russia Share History's Highest Stage. Accessed February 27, 2016 .
  6. ^ Richard Hollingham: The five greatest space hacks of all time. BBC, July 25, 2014, accessed February 27, 2016 .
  7. ↑ animation of the collision. (MPG) NASA, accessed on February 27, 2016 (without, audio).
  8. ^ NASA: C. Michael Foale. (PDF) In: NASA Oral History. P. 12ff , accessed on February 28, 2016 (English).
  9. ↑ a b Rhein-Zeitung: (Almost) everything is sunshine again. July 21, 1997, accessed February 28, 2016 .