Salyut 7
Expedition 2

Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing 160 km east of Dzheskasgan.

Following a one day solo flight Soyuz T-9 docked with Salyut 7-Kosmos 1443 on June 28, 1983. The cosmonauts became the second resident crew of the station.

Almost immediately after docking at Salyut 7’s aft port, the crew entered Kosmos 1443 and commenced transferring the 3.5 tons of cargo lining its walls to Salyut 7.

Supplies carried from cargo space ships Progress 17 and 18 arrived at the station. Numeruous scientific experiments in different disciplines were done. On July 27, 1983 a small object struck a Salyut 7 viewport. It blasted out a 4 mm crater, but did not penetrate the outer of the windows two panes. It was not clear, if it was orbital debris or from a meteor shower.

The crew loaded Kosmos 1443’s VA capsule with 350 kg of experiment results and hardware no longer in use. It could have held 500 kg, had they had that much to put in. Kosmos 1443 then undocked, in spite of Western predictions that the FGB component would remain attached to Salyut 7 as a space station module. The VA capsule soft-landed on August 23, 1983 and the FGB component continued in orbit until it was deorbited over the Pacific Ocean on September 19, 1983.

The first EVA was performed by Vladimir Lyakhov and Aleksandr Aleksandrov on November 01, 1983 (2h 50m). The cosmonauts added a new panel to one edge of Salyut 7s top (centre) array.

Both cosmonauts went out of the space station for another spacewalk on November 03, 1983 (2h 55m). This EVA was a repeat of the first. Together the two new panels increased Salyut 7s available electricity by 50%.