Salyut 6 and Soyuz T-2

More work was in train to test-out Soyuz-T so, after the main Salyut 6 crew left for Earth at the end of Expedition 4, the space station was used again as a host for a Soyuz-T mission. This time the purpose of the test was to prove the ability to carry a crew of three.

Soyuz T-3 carried the first Soviet three-cosmonaut crew since 1971, when three crew had died following an air leak during the return to Earth from Salyut 1 of Soyuz 11 - they were not wearing space suits. Subsequently, Soyuz crews wore suits on the ascent and descent - the extra weight and space penalties meant reducing the crew to two. Soyuz-T's improved performance compared with the old design meant that the change could be reversed. The improvement cam in part through a slight increase in mass, and partly through re-design and miniaturisation, or eleimination of systems.

Date	Time (UTC)	Event
1980 Nov 27	14:18	Soyuz T-3 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome by Soyuz rocket into 196 x 236 kilometre orbit with Leonid Kizim, Oleg Makarov and Gennady Strekalov aboard - it is the first three-person Soyuz crew since Soyuz 11 in 1971
1980 Nov 28	15:54	Soyuz T-3 docks at the forward port of Salyut 6 - orbit is 286 x 300 kilometres
1980 Dec 9	10:23	Progress 11 undocks
1980 Dec 10	06:10	Soyuz T-3 undocks with Kizim, Makarov and Strekalov aboard
1980 Dec 10	09:26	Soyuz T-3 lands - 130 kilometres east of Dzhezhkazgan
1980 Dec 11	14:00	Progress 11 fires its manoeuvring engine to initiate re-entry
1980 Dec 11	14:45	Approx time - Progress 11 enters the Earth atmosphere above the southern Pacific Ocean and is destroyed by frictional heating