Soyuz TM-12

Soyuz TM-12 was the 12th expedition to Mir, and included the first Briton in space, Helen Sharman.

Soyuz TM-12

COSPAR ID	1991-034A
SATCAT no.	21311
Mission duration	144 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes, 50 seconds
Orbits completed	~2,260
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft	Soyuz 7K-STM No. 62
Spacecraft type	Soyuz-TM
Manufacturer	NPO Energia
Launch mass	7,160 kilograms (15,790 lb)
Crew
Crew size	3
Members	Anatoly Artsebarsky
Launching	Sergei Krikalev Helen Sharman
Landing	Toktar Aubakirov Franz Viehböck
Callsign	Озо́н (Ozone)
Start of mission
Launch date	18 May 1991, 12:50:28 (1991-05-18UTC12:50:28Z) UTC
Rocket	Soyuz-U2
End of mission
Landing date	10 October 1991, 04:12:18 (1991-10-10UTC04:12:19Z) UTC
Landing site	61 kilometres (38 mi) SW of Arkalyk
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Low Earth
Perigee altitude	389 kilometres (242 mi)
Apogee altitude	397 kilometres (247 mi)
Inclination	51.6 degrees
Period	92.4 minutes
Docking with Mir
Docking date	20 May 1991, 14:30:43 UTC
Undocking date	9 October 1991, 20:55:08 UTC
Soyuz programme (Crewed missions)

Crew

Position	Launching crew	Landing crew
Commander	Anatoly Artsebarsky Only spaceflight
Flight Engineer	/ Sergei Krikalev Second spaceflight	Toktar Aubakirov Only spaceflight
Research Cosmonaut	Helen Sharman Only spaceflight (Project Juno)	Franz Viehböck Only spaceflight

Mission highlights

The Mir crew welcomed aboard Anatoli Artsebarski, Sergei Krikalev (on his second visit to the station), and British cosmonaut-researcher Helen Sharman, who was aboard as part of Project Juno, a cooperative venture partly sponsored by British private enterprise. Sharman's experimental program, which was designed by the Soviets, leaned heavily toward life sciences, her speciality being chemistry. A bag of 250,000 pansy seeds was placed in the Kvant-2 EVA airlock, a compartment not as protected from cosmic radiation as other Mir compartments. Sharman also contacted nine British schools by radio and conducted high-temperature superconductor experiments with the Elektropograph-7K device. Sharman commented that she had difficulty finding equipment on Mir as there was a great deal more equipment than in the trainer in the cosmonaut city of Zvezdny Gorodok. Krikalev commented that, while Mir had more modules than it had the first time he lived on board, it did not seem less crowded, as it contained more equipment. Krikalev also noted that some of the materials making up the station's exterior had faded and lost color, but that this had no impact on the station's operation.

The spacecraft spent 144 days docked to Mir. While it was in orbit, the failed coup d'état against Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991 rocked the Soviet Union, setting in motion events which led to the end of the Soviet Union on 26 December.

In popular culture

Out of the Present, a 1995 film documentary focused on cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev's stay on Mir, features the arrival of Soyuz TM-12.