Mission highlights

14th 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 Germany.

The First Russian Soyuz mission after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Klaus Dietrich Flade became the second German to visit a space station when he reached Mir with the Vityaz crew. The first was Sigmund Jahn

Sigmund Jähn

Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn is a German pilot who became the first German to fly in space as part of the Soviet Union's Interkosmos program.-Biography:Jähn was born in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz, in the Vogtland district of Saxony, Germany...

 of East Germany, who visited Salyut 6 in 1978. Flade conducted 14 German experiments as part of Germany’s preparation for participation in the Freedom and Columbus space station projects.

Suffered a landing system malfunction, causing its descent module to turn
over. It came to rest upside down, trapping its occupants inside until it could
be righted.