Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Soyuz 12 Mission Statistics Mission Name: Soyuz 12 Call Sign: Урал (Ural - "Ural") Number of Crew Members: 2 Launch: September 27, 1973 12:18 UTC Baikonur LC1 Landing: September 29, 1973 13:14 UTC Duration: 2 days, 56 minutes Number of Orbits: 31 Soyuz 12 was the test flight of the newly-redesigned Soyuz spacecraft that was intended to provide greater crew safety in the wake of the Soyuz 11 tragedy. The crew capacity of the capsule had been decreased from three to two cosmonauts to allow for space suits to be worn during launch, re-entry, and potentially hazardous maneuvers such as docking. Cosmonauts Vasili Lazarev and Oleg Makarov were to evaluate the design, which proved to be successful and well-behaved. Crew Vasili Lazarev Oleg Makarov Mission Parameters Mass: 6720 kg Perigee: 306 km Apogee: 348 km Inclination: 51.0° Period: 91.0 minutes Previous Mission: Soyuz 11 Soyuz programme Next Mission: Soyuz 13 This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.