Soyuz TM-31: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Crew

Launched: ISS Expedition 1 crew:

• Yuri Gidzenko (2)
• Sergei Krikalev (5)
• William Shepherd (4)

Landed:

• Talgat Musabayev (3)
• Yuri Baturin (2)
• Dennis Tito (1) - Tourist (U.S.A.)

• Mass: ? kg
• Perigee: 190 km
• Apogee: 249 km
• Inclination: 51.6°
• Period: 88.6 minutes

6th spaceflight to visit ISS.

Soyuz TM-31 was Russian passenger transportation satellite launched by a Soyuz-U rocket at 07:52 UT. It carried a crew of three to dock it with the Zvezda module of the International Space Station (ISS) at about 09:20 UT on 2 November. The Progress M1-3 cargo craft that remains docked with Zvezda will first be evicted to make way for the Soyuz. The crew of two Russian and one American cosmonauts spent over three months in the ISS, and returned to Earth in an American shuttle (STS 102) in February 2001. In the initial days, the crew brought a variety of life support systems on-line, and created a lap-top computer network that helped run all systems in the ISS. The remaining months were allotted for exercise and space endurance practice. The crew was first batch of a decade-long "permanent inhabitation" of the ISS.