Soyuz 31
Soyuz 31 was a Soyuz spacecraft which launched on 26 August 1978 14:51 UTC. It transported two cosmonauts of EP-4 to Salyut 6. The crew was Valery Bykovsky and Sigmund Jähn.
TMinusZero
Loading
Preparing the latest launch data.
Launch Detail
Loading launch detail
Pulling launch timing, vehicle context, weather signals, and mission evidence.
Launch detail
Soviet Space Program • Soyuz U • 1/5 (KZ-43)
Top answer
Soyuz 31 was the sixth mission to visit the Salyut 6 space station and carried the the EP-4 crew, which visited the long-duration Soyuz 29 resident crew. The mission began on August 26, 1978, 14:51:30 UTC, launching Commander Valery Bukovsky and Research Cosmonaut/Flight Engineer Sigmund Jähn, the first German cosmonaut, into orbit. They docked with the station the next day. During their stay on the station, crew...
Last refreshed: Jun 14, 2023, 1:40 PM GMT+5. T-Minus Zero keeps this as the canonical launch record and reconciles schedule, mission, payload, media, and provider signals when those records are available.
Premium keeps the launch-by-launch change log visible so you can review slips, window edits, and status changes without waiting for an error-driven upgrade prompt.
Free-to-share photography matched to this launch. Tap a photo to view it at full resolution.
Soyuz 31 Patch
Soyuz 31 PatchLaunch-stage and landing context surfaced from LL2 when it exists.
Soyuz 31 was a Soyuz spacecraft which launched on 26 August 1978 14:51 UTC. It transported two cosmonauts of EP-4 to Salyut 6. The crew was Valery Bykovsky and Sigmund Jähn.
The Soyuz spacecraft safely landed in Kazakhstan.
Soyuz 31 was the sixth mission to visit the Salyut 6 space station and carried the the EP-4 crew, which visited the long-duration Soyuz 29 resident crew. The mission began on August 26, 1978, 14:51:30 UTC, launching Commander Valery Bukovsky and Research Cosmonaut/Flight Engineer Sigmund Jähn, the first German cosmonaut, into orbit. They docked with the station the next day. During their stay on the station, crew conducted various scientific experiments. Soyuz 31 crew swapped vehicles with the Soyuz 29 (EO-2 expedition) crew, which allowed for a longer stay in orbit for EO-2. The mission concluded with a safe landing back on Earth on September 3, 1978, 11:40:34 UTC.

Alternate mission URLs consolidate to this canonical launch record so exact mission timing, status, media, and source context stay on one page.
Use these internal paths to move from this exact launch record into the provider, vehicle, launch-site, schedule, and mission-family pages that own broader context.
This launch currently has no dedicated mission-family hub, so provider, vehicle, site, and canonical record links are the primary internal paths.
Some high-demand launch records carry specialized search intent. These profiles explain what can be verified from the published record without filling gaps that upstream sources have not published.
Crew and spacecraft evidence is grouped from published launch, crew, payload, program, agency, source-link, and status records so the page can answer astronaut, spacecraft, destination, provider, and schedule intent without inventing unpublished manifest details.
Key structured fields for this launch record are grouped here so the page answers mission, payload, orbit, provider, source, and timing questions before the deeper tracking and media sections.
This record is preserved as historical launch context. The page emphasizes what was launched, the vehicle and pad involved, published outcome/status fields, linked programs, and source records instead of treating the mission like an upcoming countdown.
Open the launch pad in Google Maps satellite mode using the pad coordinates.
Soyuz 31 was the sixth mission to visit the Salyut 6 space station and carried the the EP-4 crew, which visited the long-duration Soyuz 29 resident crew. The mission began on August 26, 1978, 14:51:30 UTC, launching Commander Valery Bukovsky and Research Cosmonaut/Flight Engineer Sigmund Jähn, the first German cosmonaut, into orbit. They docked with the station the next day. During their stay on the station, crew conducted various scientific experiments. Soyuz 31 crew swapped vehicles with the Soyuz 29 (EO-2 expedition) crew, which allowed for a longer stay in orbit for EO-2. The mission concluded with a safe landing back on Earth on September 3, 1978, 11:40:34 UTC.
The Soviet space program, was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) actived from 1930s until disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union's space program was mainly based on the cosmonautic exploration of space and the development of the expandable launch vehicles, which had been split between many design bureaus competing against each other. Over its 60-years of history, the Russian program was responsible for a number of pioneering feats and accomplishments in the human space flight, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile (R-7), first satellite (Sputnik 1), first animal in Earth orbit (the dog Laika on Sputnik 2), first human in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1), first woman in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6), first spacewalk (cosmonaut Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2), first Moon impact (Luna 2), first image of the far side of the Moon (Luna 3) and unmanned lunar soft landing (Luna 9), first space rover (Lunokhod 1), first sample of lunar soil automatically extracted and brought to Earth (Luna 16), and first space station (Salyut 1). Further notable records included the first interplanetary probes: Venera 1 and Mars 1 to fly by Venus and Mars, respectively, Venera 3 and Mars 2 to impact the respective planet surface, and Venera 7 and Mars 3 to make soft landings on these planets.
29ecd620b7785438ea14d404f2d7b30d284ecaabfffe681197850a3a655c4b28Provider, rocket, pad, and booster history tied to this launch.