Soyuz TM-20

USSR

Manned Flight nº: 174

Earth orbit Flight nº: 171

USSR Flight nº: 80

Launch & orbit data:

Designation	23288 / 94063A
Launch date - time	03 Oct 1994 - 22:42:30 UT
Launch site	Baikonur, LC1
Launch vehicle	Soyuz 11A511U2
OKB name - S/N°	Soyuz 7K-STM (11F732) s/n° 69
Mass (kg)	7.150
Flight Crew	Viktorenko, Aleksandr (CDR) Kondakova, Yelena (FE) Merbold, Ulf (CR)
Call Sign	Vityaz (Knight)
Earth orbit on :
- Perigee / Apogee	390 x 396 km
- Inclination	51.65 deg
- Period	92.42 min

Docking & landing data:

Docking date - time	06 Oct 1994 - 00:28:15 UT
Target spacecraft/port	Mir/fore
Undocking date - time	22 Mar 1995 - 00:43:08 UT
Deorbit burn date - time	22 Mar 1995 - 03:08:14 UT separate: 03:37 UT re-enter: 03:40 UT
Landing date - time	22 Mar 1995 - 04:04:05 UT
Landing location	54 km NE of Arkalyk (50° 31' N, 67° 21' E)
Flight Duration (d:hr:min)	169:05:22
Nbr orbits
Landing crew	Poliakov, Viktorenko, Kondakova (crew TM-18 & TM-20)

Launch Crew (EO-17):

Nr.	Surname	Given name	Job	Duration	Orbits
1	Viktorenko	Aleksandr Stepanovich	Commander	169d 05h 21m	2677
2	Kondakova	Yelena Vladimirovna	Flight engineer	169d 05h 21m	2677
3	Merbold	Ulf Dietrich	Research cosmonaut	31d 12h 35m	499

Merbold landed with Soyuz TM-19 on 4 Nov 1994

Backup Crew

Nr.	Name	Job
1	Gidzenko, Yuri P.	Commander
2	Avdeyev, Sergei V.	Flight engineer
2	Duque, Pedro-Francisco	Research cosm.

The Mir station seen against space during one of the Shuttle-Mir missions. - Credit: NASA.

Launch from Baikonur; landing 54 km northeast of Arkalyk; docking on MIR spacestation; exchange of resident crew partly; Viktorenko, Kondakova and long-term cosmonaut Polyakov became 17th resident crew of the station; scientific research program to test organism in weightlessness and long duration missions; when crew landed, Polyakov was onboard and is now world record holder (438 days in space in one flight)
Mir Expedition EO-17. Docked at the Mir forward port at 00:28 on 1994 October 6. The Mir crew of Viktorenko, Kondakova and Polyakov boarded Soyuz TM-20 on January 11, and undocked from Mir's front port at 09:00 GMT. The spacecraft withdrew to about two hundred metres from Mir and then redocked in a test of the automatic Kurs system, which had failed in Progress M-24's attempted docking. Redocking came at 09:25 GMT. Soyuz TM-20 landed 22 km northeast of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan at 04:04 GMT on March 22, 1995.

Astrophilately covers:

Launch cancel Baikonur. Send registrated, signed by crew

Cosmic Mail: Cover on board of Mir, with 2 Mir boardcancel, and 2 date boardcancel: 061094 (docking TM-20) and 031194 (undocking TM-19), signed by the crew.

Cosmic Mail: Special Kondakova cover, with 2 Mir boardcancel, and 4 date boardcancel: 061094 (docking TM-20), 131194, 170295, 160395 and 220395 (Undocking TM-20), signed by the crew.

Undocking cancel Arkalik 220395, send registrated with TP cancel.

Ref.: #7, #8, #10, #16, #207, #210 - update: 14.11.18

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