Soyuz 18
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mission statistics | |
|---|---|
| Mission name: | Soyuz 18 |
| Call sign: | Кавказ (Kavkaz - "Caucasus") |
| Number of crew members: | 2 |
| Launch: | May 24, 1975 14:58:10 UTC Baikonur LC1 |
| Landing: | July 26, 1975 14:18:18 UTC 51° N, 68° E |
| Duration: | 62 days, 23 h, 20 min, 08 s |
| Number of Orbits: | 993 |
Soyuz 18, of the Soyuz spacecraft series, brought cosmonauts Pyotr Klimuk and Vitali Sevastyanov to the Salyut 4 space station where they remained in orbit for 63 days.
The focus of the mission seems to have been research into long-term stays in space, with the crew performing various biomedical experiments and growing plants in orbit. They also made observations of the Earth and Sun.
The crew was on-board Salyut 4 during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, and contacted the participating astronauts and cosmonauts during that historic mission. ASTP resulted in a tie for the largest number of people in orbit at the same time, seven, matched by Soyuz 6, Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 8 in 1969.
The name Soyuz 18 was also given to an earlier, unsuccessful Soyuz flight that is now often referred to as Soyuz 18-1 or Soyuz 18a.
[edit] Crew
- Pyotr Klimuk (2)
- Vitali Sevastyanov (2)
[edit] Mission parameters
- Mass: 6825 kg
- Perigee: 186 km
- Apogee: 230 km
- Inclination: 51.7°
- Period: 88.6 minutes
| Preceded by Soyuz 18a |
Soyuz programme | Succeeded by Apollo-Soyuz |
