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2.7.3.6 Salyut 6 Principal Expedition 6
Vladimir Kovalyonok, Viktor Savinykh
Crew code name—Foton
Soyuz-T 4, March 12-May 26, 1981
75 days in space
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Soyuz-T 4 • Salyut 6 • Progress 12 | March 13-19, 1981 |
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Soyuz-T 4 • Salyut 6 | March 19-23, 1981 |
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Soyuz-T 4 • Salyut 6 • Soyuz 39 | March 23-30, 1981 | |
| Soyuz 39 Intercosmos flight. Soyuz 39 docked with the first Mongolian cosmonaut aboard. The Fotons assisted the Intercosmos crew with station equipment and oriented the station according to the needs of the Visiting Expedition’s experiments. On March 24 the cosmonauts installed cosmic ray detectors in the work and transfer compartments. On March 26 the cosmonauts performed the Illyuminator (“viewing port”) experiment, which studied the degradation of the station’s viewports. On March 27 Kovalyonok and Savinykh used the Gologramma (“hologram”) apparatus to image a viewing port damaged by micrometeoroids. They repeated this March 28, when they also collected samples of the station’s air and microflora and removed the cosmic ray detectors for return to Earth. March 28-29 were largely devoted to studies of Mongolia from space. The Visiting Expedition crew checked out their spacecraft on March 29. The Soviet news service Tass noted that by March 29 Salyut 6 had conducted 20,140 revolutions of Earth.[1] | |||
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Soyuz-T 4 • Salyut 6 | March 30-May 15, 1981 |
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Soyuz-T 4 • Salyut 6 • Soyuz 40 | May 15-22, 1981 | |
| Last Soyuz Ferry docks. Soyuz 40 was the last Soyuz Ferry and the last Soyuz spacecraft to dock with Salyut 6. It also ended the first phase of the Intercosmos program by carrying Romanian cosmonaut Dumitriu Prunariu and Soviet cosmonaut Leonid Popov to the station. Prunariu studied Earth’s magnetic field. Earth observations had to be delayed until the last day of his flight, when Salyut 6 at last passed over Romania in daylight. During this time the crew also tested the station’s orientation system. | |||
- ↑ “Chronology of Soyuz-T 4 Missions,” JPRS 78264, USSR Report, Space, No. 11, June 10, 1981, pp. 2-4. Compilation of transcripts of English-language broadcast reports from the Soviet news agency TASS, March 19-30, 1981.
