FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1988
1988 - 3290.PDF
»et space endurance records e Top left Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov fright oj picture) have set a new space endurance record, beating the 326 days logged by Yuri Romanenko (top right). Above French astronaut Jean-Loup Chretien fon left) is preparing for his mission to Mir later this month Soviets s by Tim Furniss Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov broke the space endurance record of 326 days on November 11. They were launched to the Mir space station on December 21 last year and are expected to return to Earth after a year in space. The previous record was held by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko. The US record of 84 days was set by three Skylab astronauts 14 years ago. French cosmonaut Jean- Loup Chretien is preparing to join Titov and Manarov, who are accompanied by doctor Valeri Poliakov who flew to Mir on August 29 on the Afghan visiting mission. Chretien will be launched aboard Soyuz TM7 on Novem ber 26 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, watched by French President Francois Mitterrand and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Also on board will be commander Alexander Volkov and flight engineer Sergei Krikalov. Docking with the Mir space station will take place on November 28. Chretien will return to Earth with Titov and Manarov on board Soyuz TM6. Although the landing is still officially scheduled for Decem ber 21, the mission may be extended by as much as ten days. Chretien's mission, code- named Aragats, was originally scheduled to last 30 days and will be the longest international mission conducted. Chretien, who will become the first non-American, non- Soviet to make a second space flight, will also be the first to make a spacewalk, on Decem ber 12. The spacewalk will last about five hours. During it, Chretien will be accompanied by Alexander Volk. During the EVA, the cosmonauts will deploy the French ERA assembly experi ment, weighing 239kg, which was delivered to Mir on Progress 37 and 38. ERA con sists of a deployable structure, fixing attachment, video box and camera, command and control unit, and EVA handling containers. ERA, a bundle of lm-long interconnected carbonfibre tubes, will be unfurled auto matically in 4sec after the cosmonauts are back in the space station. The bundle will become a 3 • 8m-diameter struc ture which will be tested for rigidity. The cosmonauts will also erect an experimental solar panel system on Mir, called Armedeus, to test a deployment mechanism. The French launch and flight is being provided free of charge by the Soviets, although the mission has cost French taxpayers $30 million. Soviet space agency Glavkosmos believes it is receiving payment in kind with the scientific return it will get from the French experiments, including the third flight of the French Echograph electrocardiogram. Other medical tests will measure neurosensor reactions, visual acuity, radiation effects, and blood analysis. Some French student experiments and data-collection test systems are also being carried. France wishes to fly further • missions to Mir every two to three years and will pay for these. Austria has already nego tiated a commercial mission, a proposed West German mission is expected to be commercial, and several other countries are proposing such missions, although Esa has turned down an offer for a commercial flight, according to the Belgian Space Information Centre. The next French flight could take place in 1991/92 by Michel Tognini, Chretien's backup. Also on the backup crew for Soyuz TM7 are Soviet cosmonauts Alexander Viktor- enko and Alexander Serebrov, who are likely to fly to Mir next summer with another crew- member to relieve Volkov, Krikalov, and Poliakov. By then there should be two more modules attached to Mir. These will be launched next year on Proton vehicles in quick succes sion, to avoid Mir being asym metrical for too long. The modules will be five- tonne Kvant-class units, with service modules which will be jettisoned after docking. The first will be a multipurpose module, providing a large air lock, new spacesuits, stabilisa tion gyros, more solar arrays, toilets and a shower, an Elec tron machine to obtain oxygen through electrolysis, and a multispectral camera from Carl Zeiss Iena of East Germany. The following module will be a technology craft for micro- gravity processing of semicon ductors. Solar panels on both modules will increase Mir's power generation from lOkW to about 30kW. The launch of both these modules has been delayed considerably. They should have launched in 1987, according to information first released in 1986. 12 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 19 November 1988
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
