Salyut 6
Expedition 4

Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing with Soyuz 37 capsule 140 km southeast of Dzheskasgan.

Following a one day solo flight the Soyuz docked with Salyut 6 on 10.04.1980. The cosmonauts became the fourth resident crew. Ryumin was not originally planned for this mission, but Valentin Lebedev was injured on his knee before launch and had to be replaced by Ryumin.

The dockings of Soyuz 36 on 27.05.1980, of new developed spacecraft Soyuz T-2 on 06.06.1980, Soyuz 37 on 24.07.1980 and Soyuz 38 on 19.09.1980. have been visiting crews. Supplies were brought with cargo spacecrafts Progress 8 - 11. The space station was in good, but not in perfect shape, when the crew arrived. Two viewports in the transfer compartment had lost their transparency.

The cosmonauts had a rather busy time onboard the station. They replaced components of the attitude control system and life support system, installed a new caution and warning system, synchronised the station's clocks with those in the TsUP, added an 80 kg storage battery, and replaced air from tanks in Progress 8.

Several scientific experiments were performed as biological cultivation tests, photography of Earth surface, materials science Kristall or Splav-01 materials processing furnaces.

The crew set a new spaceflight record.