Soyuz TM-3 - crewsigned landing cover - Anatoly Levchenko

SOYUZ TM-3 ARKALYK LANDING COVER

Signed by the Complete Landing Crew • Including Rare Anatoly Levchenko Autograph

From the Personal Collection of Renowned Astrophilatelist Jacques Bracke

An exceptional Soyuz TM-3 landing cover, cancelled at Arkalyk and hand-signed by the spacecraft’s complete three-member return crew:

Yuri Romanenko — Commander
Aleksandr Aleksandrov — Flight Engineer
Anatoly Levchenko — Research Cosmonaut and Buran Test Pilot

The cover comes from the personal collection of renowned Belgian astrophilatelist Jacques Bracke, whose extensive collection encompassed flown artifacts, signed covers, photographs and other important material from the Soviet, Russian and American space programs. 

Soyuz TM-3: Historical Background

Soyuz TM-3 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 22 July 1987 and docked with the Mir space station two days later. 

Aleksandrov remained aboard Mir with long-duration commander Yuri Romanenko. Soyuz TM-3 stayed docked to the station for more than five months, serving as the resident crew’s return and emergency-rescue spacecraft.

The spacecraft finally departed Mir on 29 December 1987 and landed northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, carrying Romanenko, Aleksandrov and visiting Buran test pilot Anatoly Levchenko. Mission records confirm that Levchenko returned aboard Soyuz TM-3 after launching eight days earlier aboard Soyuz TM-4.

Landing crew

Yuri Romanenko
Commander of Mir’s second resident expedition. His mission lasted more than 326 days, establishing a new endurance record at the time.

Aleksandr Aleksandrov
The only cosmonaut who both launched and landed aboard Soyuz TM-3.

Anatoly Levchenko
A distinguished test pilot and cosmonaut assigned to the Soviet Buran reusable spacecraft program.

Anatoly Levchenko: One of the Rarest Cosmonaut Autographs

Levchenko’s signature is considered particularly difficult to obtain because his career as a flown cosmonaut was exceptionally brief.

He was selected from the Gromov Flight Research Institute’s group of test pilots and trained for the Soviet Buran space-shuttle program. Levchenko was intended as a potential pilot—and is widely documented as a planned backup commander—for Buran’s first crewed test flight.

To gain direct experience of operating after exposure to weightlessness, he launched aboard Soyuz TM-4 on 21 December 1987 with Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov. After spending approximately eight days in space, he returned aboard Soyuz TM-3 with Romanenko and Aleksandrov on 29 December.

Levchenko died on 6 August 1988, less than eight months after his flight and only a few months before Buran’s successful uncrewed orbital mission. His early death left very limited opportunity for him to sign philatelic and commemorative material. As a result, authentic Levchenko signatures rank among the most elusive autographs of the later Soviet human-spaceflight era.

While comparisons with the famously rare Soyuz 11 crew signatures are necessarily subjective, Levchenko is widely regarded by advanced collectors as one of the most difficult flown Soviet cosmonauts to obtain in signed material.

The Arkalyk Landing Connection

Arkalyk, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, served for decades as an important recovery center for returning Soviet spacecraft. Landing and recovery covers cancelled there have a direct geographical connection to the final phase of Soyuz missions and occupy a distinct place in astrophilately.

Soyuz TM-3 landed approximately 140 kilometres northeast of Arkalyk on 29 December 1987. The Arkalyk cancellation therefore gives this cover a particularly appropriate association with the recovery of Romanenko, Aleksandrov and Levchenko.

Collecting Significance

This cover combines several especially desirable characteristics:

• Arkalyk cancellation associated with the Soyuz TM-3 landing
• Signatures of the complete three-member landing crew
• Rare autograph of Buran test pilot Anatoly Levchenko
• Association with Yuri Romanenko’s record-setting Mir expedition
• Connection to both the Soyuz TM-3 and Soyuz TM-4 missions
• Provenance from the personal collection of Jacques Bracke

A historically important piece of Soviet space philately, connecting the early Mir program, an international Soviet–Syrian mission and the unrealized crewed ambitions of the Buran space-shuttle project.