SPACE FLIGHT 1999
Space Station Mir
By: Jesco
von Puttkamer
By the end of 1999, Russia's seventh space station had been in operation for
5,063 days. Its thirteen-year anniversary occurred on February 20, 1999. By the
end of 1999, it had circled the Earth approximately 79,255 times at an altitude
in the range of 199-225 mi. (318-360 km) in an orbit inclined 51.65 degrees to
the equator. 
Counting
from its last brief period of nonoccupancy (Sept. '89) to the departure of the
last crew in 1999, Mir
has been inhabited continuously for 3,643 days (10 yrs.). Since its inception,
it has been visited 38 times, incl. nine
times by a U.S. shuttle docking to it, by two- to three-person crews (shuttle
visits: 5-7 persons). Between 1990 and August '99, Mir
has played host to a total of 18 (paying) guest cosmonauts and astronauts from
foreign countries (incl. U.S.). To resupply the occupants, the space station
was visited in 1999 by two automated Progress
cargo ships, bringing the total of Progress
ships launched to Mir and the two preceding stations, Salyut-7
and Salyut-6, to 85, with no failure (except for the collision of one of the
drones with the station in 1997). For Mir's schematic, click here.
Soyuz TM-29/Mir-27. Soyuz TM-29 was launched
on 2/20, at 11:17pm EST (2/19) with the new Mir-27 crew, Viktor Afanasyev, Jean-Pierre
Haignère (France), and Ivan Bella (Slovakia). Dubbed Perseus, the mission was
the sixth joint French-Russian Mir expedition and the seventh joint orbital flight
by the two countries. Docking was on 2/22 (00:36am EST). The crew conducted some
100 experiments, with an incubator with 60 quail eggs hatching a few days after
docking, to study effects of space mission on embryonic and postembryonic developments.
Fledglings returned to Earth (only two survived) with Gennady Padalka (from the
Mir-26 crew, launched in 1998) and Bella in Soyuz TM-28 on 2/28, landing near
Arkhalyk, Kasakhstan, about 9:13pm EST (2/27). Mir-26 cosmonaut Avdeev continued
on with Afanasyev and Haignère. The latter two conducted a 6h 19m spacewalk for
the recovery and installation of two French experiments, Comet and Exobiology.
Five experiments planned by Russian scientists were only partially completed,
but the two spacewalkers launched a 3-kg. (6.6-lbs.) one-third scale model of
the first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1. On 7/18, the Progress M-42 cargo drone
docked to deliver, among else, a backup computer intended to provide motion control
redundancy during the forthcoming period of at least six months of uncrewed (mothballed)
operation of Mir. It was the first time in ten years that the station was left
without human occupancy. After installing the new systems and preparing Mir for
its untended dormancy, Avdeyev, Afanasyev and Haignère returned to Earth in Soyuz
TM-29 on 8/27, landing near Chapayevka village, about 60 km from Baikonur cosmodrome,
at 8:35pm EDT. When they landed, Flight Engineer Avdeyev had spent 389 days on
Mir; added to his other hitches, this brought his total staytime in space to
a record duration of 742 days. Record holder for uninterrupted stay on Mir still
is physician Valery Polyakov with 438 days in 1994-95.
Questions or comments? Send a message to Jesco
von Puttkamer
