Soyuz TM-6

Infobox Space mission
mission_name = Soyuz TM-6
sign = Прото́н (Proton)
crew_members = 3
launch = August 29, 1988
04:23:11 UTC
Gagarin's Start
landing = December 21, 1988
09:57:00 UTC
160 km SE of Dzhezkazgan
duration = 114 days 5 h, 33 min, 49 s
orbits = ~1,840
next = Soyuz TM-7
previous = Soyuz TM-5 |

Soyuz TM-6 was the sixth expedition to the Soviet/Russian Space Station Mir.

Crew

Launched:
*Vladimir Lyakhov (3)
*Valeri Polyakov (1)
*Abdul Ahad Mohmand (1) - Afghanistan

Landed:
*Vladimir Titov (3)
*Musa Manarov (1)
*Jean-Loup Chrétien (2) - France

Mission parameters

*Mass: 7070 kg
*Perigee: 195 km
*Apogee: 228 km
*Inclination: 51.6°
*Period: 88.7 minutes

Mission highlights

Dr. Valeri Polyakov remained behind on Mir with cosmonauts Musa Manarov and Vladimir Titov when Mohmand and Lyakhov returned to Earth in Soyuz TM-5.

Its crew had a unique makeup, with a commander (Vladimir Lyakhov) who had been trained to fly a Soyuz-TM solo in the event a rescue ship needed to be sent to recover two cosmonauts from Mir, no flight engineer, and two inexperienced cosmonaut-researchers. One was Dr. Valeri Polyakov, who would remain aboard Mir with Titov and Manarov to monitor their health during the final months of their planned year-long stay. The other was Intercosmos cosmonaut Abdul Ahad Mohmand, from Afghanistan. Mohmand’s experiment program was dominated by a series of observations of Afghanistan, called Shamshad. Soviet flight control did not want Mohmand to interfere with the flight procedures. During their return to Earth, Soyuz-TM 5 suffered a combined computer software and sensor problem, which caused the re-entry rockets to stop their burn. After a quick checkup of position and attitude, Lyakhov realised there was nothing wrong and restarted the retroburn programme. Again the rockets failed to finish their burn and Lyakhov decides to wait for instructions from the ground.While waiting for a response, Abdul Mohmand discovers that even though the rockets failed to fire, the re-entry program had continued and within a few moments the re-entry module would be separated from the orbital and engine modules, leaving them crippled in space.He warns Lyakhov and with less than a minute away from separation, Lyakhov stops the program.This causes them to return to Earth one day later.