Avdeyev Credit: www.spacefacts.de |
Status: Inactive; Active 1987-2003. Born: 1956. Spaceflights: 3 . Total time in space: 747.59 days. Birth Place: Chapaevsk, Samara.
Detachment: NPOE-8. Departed Date: 2003-02-14.
Soyuz TM-13 and TM-14 crews were reshuffled extensively due to commercial seat bookings by Austria and Germany and the necessity of flying a Kazakh-born cosmonaut as part of the Baikonur rental agreement. This was the original crew assignment. The Kazakh researchers were moved to the earlier Soyuz TM-13 flight.
Mir Expedition EO-12. Russian astronauts Solovyov and Avdeev and French astronaut Tognini were inserted into an initial 190 x 200 km orbit inclined 51.6 deg. Later on July 27 they maneuvered to a 223 x 343 km orbit, and on July 28 docked with Mir in its 405 x 410 km orbit.
Aleksandr Solovyov and Sergey Avdeyev undocked from the Mir complex aboard Soyuz TM-15 on February 1 and landed the same day in Kazakhstan after six months in space at 03:47 GMT. Soyuz TM-15's flight was an in-orbit record for a Soyuz spaceship - 188 days 21 h 39 m.
Mir Expedition EO-18. Soyuz TM-21 carried the EO-18 Mir crew and American Norman Thagard. Thagard was the first American to be launched in a Soyuz. Soyuz docked with Mir at 07:45:26 GMT on March 16 . On July 4 Soyuz TM-21 undocked and backed off to a distance of 100 m from Mir. The US space shuttle Atlantis, with the EO-18 crew aboard, then undocked and began a flyaround at a distance of 210 m, while the EO-19 crew aboard Soyuz took pictures before redocking with the station. Soyuz TM-21 again undocked with the EO-19 crew on September 11 from the Kvant rear port on Mir and landed at 50 deg 41'N 68 deg 15'E, 108 km northeast of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan, at 06:52:40 GMT .
Mir Expedition EO-20. Crew commander was Yuriy Pavlovich Gidzenko of the Russian Air Force. Flight engineer was Sergey Vasilyevich Avdeev of RKK Energiya, and cosmonaut-researcher was Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency. Soyuz TM-22 docked with Mir's front (-X) port at 10:29:54 GMT on September 5 and the hatch was opened at 11:01:23.
Soyuz TM-28 docked at 10:56 GMT on August 15 with the rear (Kvant) port of the Mir space station, which had been vacated at 09:28 GMT on August 12 by Progress M-39. The EO-25 crew, Musabayev and Budarin, landed with Baturin on Aug 25, leaving the EO-26 crew of Padalka and Avdeyev on the station. As only one final Soyuz mission to Mir was planned, with two of the seats on that Soyuz pre-sold to Slovak and French experimenters, the return crew of Soyuz TM-28 was subject to constant replanning and revision. On February 8, 1999, at 11:23 GMT Padalka and Avdeyev undocked from Mir's -X port in Soyuz TM-28, and redocked at the +X Kvant port at 11:39 GMT, freeing up the front port for the Soyuz TM-29 docking. Finally on February 27, 1999 EO-26 commander Padalka and Slovak cosmonaut Bella undocked Soyuz TM-28 from the Kvant rear docking port at 22:52 GMT, landing in Kazakhstan on February 28 at 02:14 GMT. Avdeyev remained on Mir with the EO-27 crew delivered on Soyuz TM-29, heading for a manned space flight time record.
Internal Vehicular Activity. After donning spacesuits, the PKhO compartment of the Mir core module was depressurized and the crew entered the dead Spektr module at 20:00 GMT. They reconnected some cables for the solar panel steering mechanism and closed the hatch a half hour later. The PKhO was then repressurized.
Padalka and Avdeyev made the EVA from the Kvant-2 airlock on the Mir. The walk began at 19:24 GMT. The cosmonauts installed a meteoroid detector in for the upcoming Leonid shower, and hand-launched the Spoutnik-41 amateur-radio mini-satellite. The space walk concluded at 01:18 GMT on November 11.
The hatch between Mir and Soyuz was closed at 18:12 GMT on August 27, 1999. Soyuz TM-29 undocked from Mir at 21:17 GMT with Afanasyev, Avdeyev and Haignere aboard. The Mir EO-27 crew landed in Kazakhstan at 00:35 GMT on August 28. Afanasyev had set a new cumulative time in space record, but for the first time since September 1989 there were no humans in space.