Soyuz 37

Soyuz 37

COSPAR ID	1980-064A
SATCAT no.	11905

Soyuz 37 (Russian: Союз 37, Union 37) was a 1980 Soviet manned space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the 13th mission to and 11th successful docking at the orbiting facility. The Soyuz 37 crew were the third to visit the long-duration Soyuz 35 resident crew.

Soyuz 37 carried Soviet Viktor Gorbatko and Pham Tuân, the first Asian and first Vietnamese cosmonaut, into space. They swapped Soyuz craft with the long-duration crew and returned to earth in Soyuz 36, the resident crew later used their craft to return to earth.

Crew

Position	Launching crew	Landing crew
Commander	Viktor Gorbatko Third spaceflight  Soviet Union	Leonid Popov First spaceflight  Soviet Union
Flight Engineer	Pham Tuân Only spaceflight Intercosmos Research Cosmonaut  Vietnam	Valery Ryumin Third spaceflight  Soviet Union

Backup crew

Position	Crew
Commander	Valery Bykovsky  Soviet Union
Flight Engineer	Bui Thanh Liem  Vietnam

Mission parameters

• Mass: 6,800 kg (15,000 lb)
• Perigee: 197.8 km (122.9 mi)
• Apogee: 293.1 km (182.1 mi)
• Inclination: 51.61°
• Period: 89.12 minutes

Mission highlights

Pham Tuan of Vietnam arrived with Commander Viktor Gorbatko aboard Salyut 6 in Soyuz 37; they both returned to Earth in the Soyuz 36 spacecraft approximately eight days later. Tuan’s 30 experiments involved observing Vietnam from space, life sciences (including tests of growth of Vietnamese azolla water ferns, with application to future closed-loop life support systems), and materials processing. The long-duration crew launched in Soyuz 35 returned to earth in the Soyuz 37 spacecraft at the end of their 186 day mission.