Crew

Launched:

• Anatoli Berezovoy (1)
• Valentin Lebedev (2)

Landed:

• Leonid Popov (3)
• Aleksandr Serebrov (1)
• Svetlana Savitskaya (1)

Mission Parameters

• Mass: 6850 kg
• Perigee: 190 km
• Apogee: 231 km
• Inclination: 51.6°
• Period: 89.7 minutes

Mission Highlights

1st expedition to Salyut 7. Visited by 2nd and 3rd expeditions.

The Elbrus crew ejected a 28-kg amateur radio satellite from a Salyut 7 trash airlock on May 17. The Soviets called this the first launch of a communications satellite from a manned space vehicle. They did this ahead of the launch of two large geostationary satellites from the U.S. Space Shuttle (STS-5, November 11-16, 1982).

On May 25, the Elbrus crew reoriented Salyut 7 so the aft end of the Progress pointed toward Earth. This placed the station in gravity-gradient stabilization. Lebedev remarked in his diary that the attitude control jets were “very noisy,” and that they sounded like “hitting a barrel with a sledgehammer.” Of Salyut 7 during the unpacking of Progress 13, Lebedev said, “It looks like we’re getting ready to move or have just moved to a new apartment.” The following day the Elbrus crew closed the hatch from the work compartment into the intermediate compartment so the TsUP could pump fuel from Progress 13 to Salyut 7. The crew monitored the operation but played little active role in it. May 29 was spent organizing the supplies delivered. At the same time, according to Lebedev, “we filled the resupply ship with what we don’t need and tied them down with ropes. When I enter the resupply ship, it jingles with a metallic sound, so when we separate it will sound like a brass band.” Progress 13 pumped 300 liters of water aboard on May 31. On June 2 Progress 13 lowered the station’s orbit to 300 km to receive Soyuz T-6.