Soyuz TM-20

Overview

Destination: Low Earth Orbit
Mission: Human Exploration

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

Soyuz TM-20 was the 20th mission and the 17th long-duration expedition to Mir space station. The mission began on October 3, 1994, 22:42:30 UTC, launching Commander Alexander Viktorenko, Flight Engineer Yelena Kondakova and Research Cosmonaut Ulf Merbold into orbit. They docked with Mir two days later. During their stay there, cosmonauts performed two EVAs, carried out various scientific experiments. Station crew was visited by several Progress resupply spacecrafts, and welcomed aboard the Soyuz TM-21 crew. During this mission the first rendezvous maneuver of the Space Shuttle STS-63 with the Mir space station was performed. The mission concluded with a safe landing back on Earth on March 22, 1995, 04:04:05 UTC.

Soyuz-U

Family:
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
298.0 T
Thrust
―

Family

Name
Soyuz-U
Family
―
Variant
2
Alias
―
Full Name
Soyuz-U2

Payload Capacity

Launch Cost
―
Low Earth Orbit
7050.0 kg
Geostationary Transfer Orbit
―
Direct Geostationary
―
Sun-Synchronous Capacity
―

Soyuz TM-20

In-active Human Rated Crew On-board: 3 Crew Capacity: 3

Destination: Mir

Serial Number: Soyuz TM 11F732A51 #69

Soyuz TM-20 was a Soyuz spacecraft which launched on 3 October 1994 22:42 UTC. It transported two members of the Expedition 17 crew and one German astronaut to Mir. The Expedition 17 crew consisted of Alexander Viktorenko and Yelena Kondakova. The German was ESA astronaut Ulf Merbold.

Soyuz TM Details

Crew

Aleksandr Viktorenko

Commander - configurations.Country.None - ( RFSA )

Status: Deceased

Date of Birth: March 29, 1947
Date of Death: Aug. 10, 2023

Yelena Kondakova

Flight Engineer - configurations.Country.None - ( RFSA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: March 30, 1957
Age: 67

Ulf Merbold

Research Cosmonaut - configurations.Country.None - ( ESA )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: June 20, 1941
Age: 83

Soviet Space Program

(CCCP)

Founded: 1931 Successes: 2288 Failures: 168 Pending: 0

Agency Type:

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