Soyuz TM-23 was a Soyuz spaceflight which launched on February 21, 1996, to Mir. The spacecraft launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, and after two days of flight, Yuri Onufrienko and Yury Usachov docked with Mir and became the 21st resident crew of the Station. On September 2, 1996, after 191 days docked with Mir, the ship undocked with the launch crew and Claudie André-Deshays onboard, before eventually landing 107 km (66 mi) south west of Akmola, Kazakhstan.
Crew
Highlights Onufrienko and Usachev began their mission without a third crew member. American astronaut Shannon Lucid would join them in late March 1996 during STS-76 and depart the Mir 20 mission in September 1996 with STS-79.
Mir Principal Expedition 21
February 1996 – Mir 21 begins
Progress M-30 Undocked and Soyuz TM-23 Launched On February 21, Soyuz TM-23 launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome with the cosmonauts for Mir Principle Expedition 21. To clear a docking port for the Soyuz TM-23, the Progress M-30 was undocked on February 22 and re-entered over the Pacific Ocean. The Soyuz docked on February 23 at the +X docking port on the rear of the Kvant module. An hour and a half after docking, the hatches opened and the Soyuz TM-23 crew were greeted by Yuri Gidzenko, Sergei Avdeyev and Thomas Reiter, members of Mir Principle Expedition 20 and Euromir 95. This began a week of joint operations where Mir 20 handed the station over to Mir 21, including familiarization with the current conditions of the projects and the station itself. Two days before the return flight, a water leak appeared in the Mir base block, but the cosmonauts were able to repair it.
Mir 20/Euromir 95 mission ends Gidzenko, Avdeyev and Reiter donned their Sokol launch and reentry suits and entered the Soyuz TM-22 on February 29, 1996. They landed safely about 105 km from Arkalyk. Their mission lasted 179 days, 1 hour and 42 minutes. Reiter then held the record for spaceflight duration by a Western European.
March 1996 – Atlantis visits Mir for the third time
First EVA for Mir 21 On March 15, Onufrienko and Usachev exited the Kvant 2 EVA hatch for their first space walk. Because the existing Strela could not be used to reach the Kristall module in its current location, they installed a second Strela boom on the Mir base block, on the side opposite the Strela already in place. In the 5-hour, 51-minute EVA, they also prepared cables and electrical connectors on the surface of the Kvant module for the May installation of the Mir Cooperative Solar Array. The array was stored on the surface of the Docking Module that was installed on Kristall last November.
Atlantis launched The U.S. Space Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis was launched from Kennedy Space Center on March 22 at 11:00 UTC for its sixteenth flight as STS-76. During the ascent phase, flight controllers detected a small leak in one of Atlantis's three redundant hydraulic systems, but after the system was shut off when Atlantis reached orbit, the leak stopped. The approximately 20% loss of that one system's hydraulic fluid would not adversely affect the mission because the hydraulic system would not be used again until the descent phase.
Preparations for docking During the first two days of the mission, Atlantis Commander Kevin Chilton and Pilot Richard Searfoss began jet firings to guide Atlantis's journey toward Mir. The crew prepared for the docking by checking out communications equipment and docking and alignment aids. They also activated Spacehab and began orbital operations for Biorack experiments. Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Michael Clifford checked out the space suits and equipment for their upcoming EVA.
Atlantis approaches Mir On mission day 3, when Atlantis was within 8 miles of the station, Chilton fired the orbital maneuvering system engines in the terminal phase initiation burn. As the two spacecraft completed another orbit, Atlantis approached Mir from below along the R-bar, using rendezvous radar to track its approach rate and measure its distance.
Third Atlantis/Mir Docking Chilton took manual control at one-half mile below the Mir, executing a 180 degree yaw rotation to align Atlantis with the Docking Module on Kristall. He used the ODS centerline camera as an aid in refining and maintaining the alignment. At 12:34 UTC on March 24, he achieved contact, adding Atlantis to a space station complex that then totaled 230 tons. After confirmation of docking, leak checks and pressurization of the docking vestibule, the hatches were opened and the two crews greeted each other. Shortly afterward, the Atlantis crew installed ducts to aid in circulating air between the two spacecraft during the docking phase.
Lucid joins the Mir 21 crew Shannon Lucid officially became a Mir 21 crew member at 12:30 UTC on March 24 after a joint "go" from the Russian and U.S. mission control centers. She became the first in a planned continuous U.S. astronaut presence on Mir until 1998.
New supplies brought up on Atlantis In the joint portion of the mission, the two crews loaded into the station more than 1 ton of U.S. science equipment, almost 2 tons of Russian supplies and 15 containers of water totaling about 1.5 tons. Approximately a ton of excess equipment, waste and science payload was transferred from Mir to Atlantis. From their vantage point in orbit, the crews were treated to a good view of the comet Hyakutake. Some of the spacecraft hardware items brought up by Atlantis were replacement gyrodyne, a seat liner kit for Lucid to be placed in a Soyuz module if emergency return to Earth was required and three Russian storage batteries which had been replenished on Earth.
Experiment Supplies Some of the new supplies and equipment for onboard experiments included replacement hardware for the Mir glovebox stowage experiments, Mir electric field characterization hardware to measure radio interference inside and around the complex, and a liquid phase sintering experiment that would use the Optizon furnace to bond different metals.
Spacehab module work On flight days 4, 5 and 7, the crew worked on the Biorack in the Spacehab module in the Orbiter payload bay. The Biorack contained eleven experiments to investigate the effects of microgravity and cosmic radiation on plants, animal tissues, bacteria, and insects. The various experiments were designed by France, Germany, the U.S., Switzerland and the Netherlands.
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