Soyuz TM-18 was launch 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...

 and landing 112 km north of Arkalyk. TM-18 was a two day solo flight that docked with the 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...

space station on January 10, 1994. The three cosmonauts became the 15th resident crew of the MIR. Thre crew did research work in space flight medicine, promarily by Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov during his long-term flight and accomplished 25 different experiments.

Crew

Mission highlights

18th 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...

.

Afanasyev and Usachev spent 179 days on Mir. Dr. Polyakov was slated to
return to Earth on Soyuz-TM 20 in March 1995, after more than 420 days on
Mir.