Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing
168 km southeast of Dzheskasgan.
Following a two day solo flight the
Soyuz docked with the MIR space station on 12.02.1997.
Tsibliyev and
Lazutkin became together with Jerry
Linenger the
23rd MIR resident
crew. The crew performed common scientific experiments together with
Ewald during the mission EUROMIR 97.
On the 14th day
a fire onboard the MIR happened. The cosmonauts were able to quench it.
EVA by
Tsibliyev and
Linenger on 29.04.1997 (4h 48m) to mount and recovery of
experiments. Later an oxygen cleaning aparature failed. The crew was visited by
STS 84 crew (17 - 22.05.1997).
The was a collision with a Progress freighter with a heavy damage of the
Spektr module. Spares were brought with the Progress M-35 cargo spacecraft to
the space station. Several more failures (energy, oxygen generators; heart
problems of
Commander
Tsibliyev). The Soyuz landing rockets failed to fire on
touchdown, so the crew performed one of the roughest landings in space
history.
