science

Soyuz 39

Soyuz 39 is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Soyuz 39 rather than just read about it. In short: Soyuz 39 was a 1981 Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the fifteenth expedition, and carried the eighth international crew to the orbiting facility.

Key takeaways

Soyuz 39 belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Soyuz 39 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Soyuz 39 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Soyuz 39 was a 1981 Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the fifteenth expedition, and carried the eighth international crew to the orbiting facility. The crew visited Vladimir Kovalyonok and Viktor Savinykh, who had reached Salyut-6 ten days prior. The flight carried Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa into space. With this mission, Gürragchaa became the first Mongolian, and second Asian cosmonaut. The Mongolian contribution for this mission had begun in 1967, when the president of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences Bazaryn Shirendev attended a conference of scientists from socialist countries in Moscow, where the Intercosmos project was announced. Dzhanibekov and Gürragchaa performed about thirty experiments during the course of the mission.

Crew

Mission parameters Mass: 6800 kg Perigee: 197.5 km Apogee: 282.8 km Inclination: 51.6° Period: 89.01 minutes

Mission highlights

Soyuz 39 docked with the first Mongolian cosmonaut aboard. The resident EO-6 crew assisted the Intercosmos crew with station equipment and oriented the station according to the needs of the visiting crew's experiments. On 24 March, the cosmonauts installed cosmic ray detectors in the station's work and transfer compartments. On 26 March the cosmonauts performed the Illuminator ("viewing port") experiment, which studied the degradation of the station's viewports. On 27 March, Vladimir Kovalyonok and Viktor Savinykh of the resident crew used the Gologramma ("hologram") apparatus to image a viewing port damaged by micrometeoroids. They repeated this experiment the next day, when they also collected samples of the station's air and microflora and removed the cosmic ray detectors for return to Earth. 28–29 March were largely devoted to studies of Mongolia from space. The visiting crew also checked out their spacecraft on 29 March The Soviet news service TASS noted that by 29 March, Salyut 6 had conducted 20,140 revolutions of Earth.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Soyuz 39

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Soyuz 39 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Soyuz 39 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Soyuz 39 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Soyuz 39

In research: Soyuz 39 appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Soyuz 39 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Soyuz 39 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1981 in the Soviet Union, Crewed Soyuz missions, Human spaceflights to Salyut space stations, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Soyuz 39 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Soyuz 39 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Soyuz 39 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Soyuz 39 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Soyuz 39 in simple terms?

Soyuz 39 was a 1981 Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the fifteenth expedition, and carried the eighth international crew to the orbiting facility.

Why does Soyuz 39 matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Soyuz 39?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Soyuz 39.