Orbital Focus - International Spaceflight Facts and Figures
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The DOS Space Stations


Tyneside, UK
2024 Mar 28
Thursday, Day 88

Curated by:










Salyut 1




Salyut 4




Salyut 6




Salyut 7




The next Salyut gets a new name
Fifth Expedition to Salyut 7 - 1986

Having been dead twelve months previously, Salyut 7 was very much alive at the beginning of 1986, orbiting as a combination with the Cosmos 1686 TKS vehicle. Salyut 7's successor, Mir was ready and went into space in February.

There was, however, still work to be done aboard Salyut 7 including using it as a base for some experimental building work, the results of which would be put to use later with Mir.

Cosmonauts Kizim and Solovyov used Mir as a staging post for their Soyuz T-15 spacecraft on the way to Salyut 7, and returned there once work was finished.

After Soyuz T-15's departure was followed by an orbit raising manouevre by Salyut 7 and there were suggestions that it might be visited again. In the event, it was not the case and the Salyut7/Cosmos 1686 combo burned up in the Earth's atmosphere above South America, out of control, at the begining of 1991.

Date Time (UTC) Event
1986 Mar 13 12:33 Soyuz T-15 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome by Soyuz rocket into 193 x 238 kilometre orbit with cosmonauts Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyev aboard - it is the final Soyuz T-mission
1986 Mar 15 13:38 Soyuz T-15 docks at the forward-facing port of Mir multi-way docking unit - orbit is 332 x 339 kilometres
1986 May 5 12:12 Soyuz T-15 undocks from Mir space station with Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyev - orbit is 310 x 345 kilometres
1986 May 6 16:57 Soyuz T-15 docks at the aft port of Salyut 7 - orbit is 335 x 343 kilometres
1986 May 28 04:43 Kizim and Solovyev start space walk to retrieve equipment from outside Salyut 7, and experiment with space construction techniques
1986 May 28 08:33 Kizim and Solovyev complete their space walk from Salyut 7 after 3 hr-50 min
1986 May 31 04:57 Kizim and Solovyev start space walk from Salyut 7 to continue space construction experiments
1986 May 31 09:37 Kizim and Solovyev complete their space walk from Salyut 7 after 4 hr-40 min
1986 Jun 25 14:58 Soyuz T-15 undocks from Salyut 7 to carry Kizim and Solovyev back to Mir - it is the end of the final, planned expedition to the laboratory
1986 Jun 26 19:46 Soyuz T-15 docks again at the forward port of Mir multi-way docking unit
1986 Jul 16 09:09 Soyuz T-15 undocks from Mir with Kizim and Solovyev aboard
1986 Jul 16 12:34 Soyuz T-15 lands - 55 kilometres north-east of Arkalyk
1991 Feb 7 03:25 Salyut 7/Cosmos 1686 combination re-enters the Earth atmosphere after natural decay of the orbit through air drag - both are destroyed but debris is reported as having reached the ground in Chile and Argentina - the Soviet economic situation has precluded the possibility of further mission s
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