Mir EP-2
Short-term expedition to Mir space station
Mir EP-2 was a visiting expedition to the Mir space station conducted in June 1988 by cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev, Viktor Savinykh and Aleksandr Aleksandrov. Launched aboard the Soyuz TM-5 spacecraft, the crew spent ten days in space before returning to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-4. The mission occurred while the EO-3 crew were aboard Mir.
Solovyev commanded the mission, with Savinykh as his flight engineer, while Bulgarian Aleksandr Panayatov Aleksandrov flew as a research cosmonaut. Aleksandrov was the second Bulgarian to fly in space, the first being Georgi Ivanov, who flew on Soyuz 33. Ivanov failed to reach the Salyut 6 space station as his mission was aborted prior to docking due to an engine failure aboard his spacecraft Soyuz 33. As a result, prior to EP-2, Bulgaria was the only Eastern European Soviet ally to not have one of its citizens visit a Soviet space station.
01Crew
| Mir EP-2 | Name | Spaceflight | Launch | Landing | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commander | Anatoly Solovyev | First | 7 June 1988 Soyuz TM-5 |
17 June 1988 Soyuz TM-4 |
9.8 days |
| Flight Engineer | Viktor Savinykh | Third | |||
| Research cosmonaut | Aleksandr Aleksandrov | First |
02Experiments
During his visit, Aleksandrov used nearly 2,000 kg of equipment delivered by Progress spacecraft to conduct 46 experiments in the Shipka programme.
03Landing
The visiting EP-2 crew returned to Earth about a week later in the spacecraft Soyuz TM-4, leaving TM-5 as the station's lifeboat.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Mir EP-2”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Soyuz TM-5 mission patch.svg by Soyuz-tm5.gif: Unknown authorUnknown author derivative work: Malyszkz (talk), Public domain
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