Crew
Launched:
Landed:
Mission Parameters
- Mass: 6800 kg
- Perigee: 197.8 km
- Apogee: 266 km
- Inclination: 51.65°
- Period: 88.86 minutes
Soyuz 29 was a Soviet space mission to the Salyut 6 space station. The Commander was Vladimir Kovalyonok, and the flight engineer was Aleksandr Ivanchenkov. Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Ryumin served as their backup crew. They were the second long-duration crew of Salyut 6.
Upon arriving at Salyut 6, Kovalyonok and Ivanchenkov switched on the stations air regenerators and thermal regulation system, and activated the water recycling system to reprocess water left aboard by the Tamyrs. De-mothballing Salyut 6 occurred simultaneously with the crews adaptation to weightlessness, and required about one week. On June 19 Salyut 6 was in a 368 km by 338 km orbit. Onboard temperature was 20°C, and air pressure was 750 mm/Hg. Soon after
this, Kovalyonok and Ivanchenkov performed maintenance on the stations airlock, installed equipment they brought with them in Soyuz 29s orbital module, and tested the stations Kaskad orientation system. The station
operated in gravity-gradient stabilized mode June 24-26 to avoid attitude
control system engine firings which could cause interference with a 3-day
smelting experiment using the Splav-01 furnace. The previous crew installed
the furnace in the intermediate compartment so it could operate in vacuum.
During their stay on board of Salyut 6 two visiting crews docked with the station. The second one exchanged the Soyuz spacecraft, allowing the crew to stay in space longed then the designated lifetime of the spacecraft. They landed with the Soyuz 31 spacecraft on November 2, 1978.
The Soyuz 29 spacecraft landed with the visiting crew which launched with Soyuz 31 - Valery Bykovsky and Sigmund Jähn, the first German cosmonaut.
The capsule is on display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, on loan from the Militärhistorisches Museum in Dresden, Germany.
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