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I'm piecing together a chronological timeline of Mir station including manned and unmanned visits to the ship, time of docking and undocking, and location of docking.

My question is around the docking location of the Soyuz spaceflights and the Progress resupply missions to the station. It would appear from the information I've gathered so far that (nearly) every flight to station had the Soyuz docking with the end of the Kvant-1 or the Core aft, with four exceptions:

  • Soyuz TM-16 docking with Kristall to test the APAS docking system for upcoming Shuttle visit
  • Soyuz T-15, Soyuz TM-1, and Soyuz TM-2 docking with the Core forward port (Kvant-1 hadn't been docked yet)

It seems most Progress flights docked with Kvant-1 after it was installed.

Was there a common location to each flight? Is there a definitive and reliable source for docking locations of each flight to the station I can use for reference?

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  • $\begingroup$ I've been referencing spacefacts.de and some of the lists on wikipedia to compile my data so far $\endgroup$ Feb 1, 2018 at 1:43
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    $\begingroup$ There was this awesome book on Mir I read in the 90's that had line drawings showing the shape of Mir after every mission that seems like it would have the info you need, but I cannot remember the name now. I can see the cover, and the images. $\endgroup$
    – geoffc
    Feb 1, 2018 at 2:58
  • $\begingroup$ @geoffc that sounds brilliant for what I'm compiling! $\endgroup$ Feb 1, 2018 at 3:37
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    $\begingroup$ This is sort of what I was thinking of... hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-4225/documentation/mhh/… $\endgroup$
    – geoffc
    Feb 1, 2018 at 16:09
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    $\begingroup$ The book was actually BETTER! I just wish I could find it again. I actually want to buy one now for myself. $\endgroup$
    – geoffc
    Feb 1, 2018 at 19:37

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There has been a book on the topic I can not seem to find from my memory.

However in searching I found a good resource, in the PDF at NASA called Mir Heritage.

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-4225/documentation/mhh/mirheritage.pdf

Looks like someone Wiki-ized the PDF into web pages: Wiki'ed version

What is interesting is how they depict the state of Mir at different points, which I think is what the question wants, but also I enjoyed since it makes visualization so much easier.

Alas, it ends in 1995, and would be nice to have a more up to date version.

An example page, showing some of the 1993 configurations is a nice example.

Sample page

And just for fun, since I love this style of photo, here is a Mir line art drawing from the doc.

Mir Complex

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