  soyuz tm-3 was the fourth manned spacecraft to visit the soviet space station mir. it was launched in july 1987, during the long duration expedition mir eo-2, and acted as a lifeboat for the second segment of that expedition. there were three people aboard the spacecraft at launch, including the two man crew of the week-long mission mir ep-1, consisting of soviet cosmonaut alexander viktorenko and syrian muhammed faris. faris was the first syrian to travel to space, and as of november 2010, the only one. the third cosmonaut launched was aleksandr aleksandrov, who would replace one of the long duration crew members aleksandr laveykin of mir eo-2. laveykin had been diagnosed by ground-based doctors to have minor heart problems, so he returned to earth with the ep-1 crew in soyuz tm-2. soyuz tm-3 landed near the end of december 1987, landing both members of the eo-2 crew, as well as p
1987_in_Syria 1987_in_spaceflight 1987_in_the_Soviet_Union Interkosmos_program Manned_Soyuz_missions Soviet_UnionaSyria_relations Spacecraft_launched_in_1987