Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing
54 km northeast of Arkalyk.
Following a two day solo flight Soyuz TM-20
docked with the MIR space station on October 06, 1994. Main goal of the mission
was to exchange the
resident crew partly. Aleksandr
Viktorenko, Yelena
Kondakova and long term cosmonaut Valeri
Polyakov became the
17th resident crew of
the station.
During the automatic approach to MIRs front port, the
spacecraft yawed unexpectedly. Aleksandr
Viktorenko completed a manual docking without additional
incident.
As part of the program EUROMIR 94 Ulf
Merbold and the resident crew performed a scientific research
program to test organism in weightlessness and long duration missions. Ulf
Merbolds experiment program included 23 life sciences, 4
materials sciences, and 3 technology experiments.
On October 11, 1994
the six cosmonauts aboard MIR were unable to activate a video camera and TV
lights while recharging Soyuz TM-20's batteries. A short circuit had disabled
the computer which guided MIR's solar arrays, forcing the station to drain its
batteries. The cosmonauts used reaction control thrusters on the Soyuz TM
spacecraft docked to the station to orient it so its solar arrays would point
toward the Sun, and switched on a backup computer. Normal conditions were
restored by October 15, 1994. According to Yuri Antoshechkin, Deputy Flight
Director for MIR Systems, speaking in December at
JSC, the shortage
afflicted only the MIR core module. Antoshechkin stated through an interpreter
that unspecified minor crew error, coupled with a long period out of contact
with monitors in the
TsUP (caused by Altair/SR relay satellite
"prophylactic work") during a crew sleep period, contributed to the base block
discharging its batteries unnoticed, and that an automatic alarm awakened the
crew when the power shortage reached a critical level.
When the crew
landed, Valeri
Polyakov was onboard and became the world record holder (438
days in space in one flight).
