Mission highlights

13th expedition to Mir

Mir

Mir was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, at first by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. Assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996, Mir was the first modular space station and had a greater mass than that of any previous spacecraft, holding the record for the...

. Included astronaut from Austria and cosmonaut from soon to be independent Kazakhstan.

Soyuz-TM 13 carried Austrian cosmonaut-researcher Franz Viehböck and still Soviet-Kazakh cosmonaut-researcher Toktar Aubakirov. The flight was unusual for carrying no flight engineer. Veteran Russian cosmonaut Alexandr Volkov commanded. The Austrians paid $7 million to fly Viehböck to Mir, and the Kazakh cosmonaut flew partly in an effort to encourage newly independent Kazakhstan to continue to permit launchings from Baikonur Cosmodrome

Baikonur Cosmodrome

The Baikonur Cosmodrome , also called Tyuratam, is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about east of the Aral Sea, north of the Syr Darya river, near Tyuratam railway station, at 90 meters above sea level...

. The cosmonaut-researchers photographed their respective countries from orbit and conducted the usual range of materials processing and medical experiments. Artsebarsky

Anatoly Artsebarsky

Anatoly Pavlovich Artsebarsky is a former Soviet cosmonaut.He became a cosmonaut in 1985. Artsebarsky has spent almost 5 months in space on a single spaceflight. In 1991, he flew aboard Soyuz TM-12 and docked with the Mir Space Station. Artsebarsky and Sergei Krikalev stayed aboard Mir while the...

 traded places with Volkov and returned to Earth in Soyuz TM-12

Soyuz TM-12

-Mission highlights:12th expedition to Mir. Included first Briton in space.The Derbents welcomed aboard Mir Anatoli Artsebarski, Sergei Krikalev , and British cosmonaut-researcher Helen Sharman, who was aboard as part of Project Juno, a cooperative venture partly sponsored by British private...

.

Spent 175 days docked to Mir

Mir

Mir was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, at first by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. Assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996, Mir was the first modular space station and had a greater mass than that of any previous spacecraft, holding the record for the...

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Krikalev

Sergei Krikalev

Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev is a Russian cosmonaut and mechanical engineer. As a prominent rocket scientist, he has been veteran of six space flights and currently has spent more time in space than any other human being.On August 16, 2005 at 1:44 a.m...

, aka "the last Citizen of the USSR ", launched from the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

Kazakh SSR

The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Kazakh SSR for short, was one of republics that made up the Soviet Union.At in area, it was the second largest constituent republic in the USSR, after the Russian SFSR. Its capital was Alma-Ata . Today it is the independent state of...

 within the USSR

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, and landed in the independent Republic of Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

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