Taxus Baccata

Soyuz T-11 was the sixth expedition to the Soviet Salyut 7 space station, which in 1984 carried the first Indian cosmonaut along with Soviet crew members.

Salyut 7 was uncrewed after the undocking of Soyuz T-11 in October 1984 until Soyuz T-13 docked with the station in June 1985. Salyut 7 developed problems during the time it was uncrewed, which meant that the crew of Soyuz T-13 had to perform a manual docking and do repairs to the station.

Crew

Position	Launching crew	Landing crew
Commander	Yuri Malyshev Second and last spaceflight  Soviet Union	Leonid Kizim Second spaceflight  Soviet Union
Flight Engineer	Gennady Strekalov Third spaceflight  Soviet Union	Vladimir Solovyov First spaceflight  Soviet Union
Research Cosmonaut	Rakesh Sharma Only spaceflight  India	Oleg Atkov Only spaceflight  Soviet Union

Backup crew

Position	Crew
Commander	Anatoly Berezovoy  Soviet Union
Flight Engineer	Georgy Grechko  Soviet Union
Research Cosmonaut	Ravish Malhotra  India

Mission parameters

• Mass: 6850 kg
• Perigee: 195 km
• Apogee: 224 km
• Inclination: 51.6°
• Period: 88.7 minutes

Mission highlights

Rakesh Sharma, aboard Salyut 7 for 7 days, 21 hours, and 40 minutes, conducted an Earth observation program concentrating on India. He also did life sciences and materials processing experiments, including silicium fusing tests. He is also reported to have experimented with practicing yoga to deal with the effects of prolonged orbital spaceflight.^[1]

The Soyuz T-11 launch crew Malyshev, Strekalov, and Sharma returned from space in the Soyuz T-10 spacecraft on 11 April 1984.

References