Mir EO-7 was the seventh long duration expedition to the space station

Space station

A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...

 Mir

Mir

Mir was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, at first by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. Assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996, Mir was the first modular space station and had a greater mass than that of any previous spacecraft, holding the record for the...

. The two crew members were Gennadi Manakov

Gennadi Manakov

Gennadi Mikhailovich Manakov is a former cosmonaut that commanded two Soyuz flights.Mankov was born in Yefimovka, Orenburg Oblast, Russian SFSR on June 1, 1950. He was selected as a Fluffer on September 2, 1985 and flew as Commander on Soyuz TM-10 and Soyuz TM-16, retiring on December 20, 1996. He...

 (Commander) and Gennadi Strekalov (Flight Engineer).

Crew

{| class="wikitable"
! Mir EO-5 !! Name !! Spaceflight !! Launch!!Landing!!Duration
|-
|| Commander
||   Gennadi Manakov

Gennadi Manakov

Gennadi Mikhailovich Manakov is a former cosmonaut that commanded two Soyuz flights.Mankov was born in Yefimovka, Orenburg Oblast, Russian SFSR on June 1, 1950. He was selected as a Fluffer on September 2, 1985 and flew as Commander on Soyuz TM-10 and Soyuz TM-16, retiring on December 20, 1996. He...

|| Second
|rowspan="2"| 1 August 1990
Soyuz TM-9

Soyuz TM-9

-Mission highlights:During docking, cosmonauts aboard Mir noticed that three of the eight thermal blankets on the descent module of the approaching Soyuz-TM 9 spacecraft had come loose from their attachments near the heat shield, yet remained attached at their top ends...

|rowspan="2"| 10 December 1990
Soyuz TM-9
|rowspan="2"| 130 days
|-
|| Flight Engineer
||   Gennadi Strekalov
|| First
|-
|}

The backup crew for this expedition were Viktor Afanasyev (Commander) and Musa Manarov (Flight Engineer).

Crew Arrival

The two crew members arrived at Mir via Soyuz TM-10

Soyuz TM-10

-Mission highlights:TM-10 marked the return to earth of Japanese reporter Toyohiro Akiyama.The Soyuz arrived at Mir's aft port with four passengers: quail for cages in Kvant-2. A quail had laid an egg en route to the station. It was returned to Earth, along with 130 kg of experiment results...

, which launched on 03 August 1990. The Soyuz

Soyuz spacecraft

Soyuz , Union) is a series of spacecraft initially designed for the Soviet space programme by the Korolyov Design Bureau in the 1960s, and still in service today...

 spacecraft docked on to the Kvant2 Complex.

Mission Highlights

While on board, the crew conducted an extensive programme of geophysical and astrophysical research, experiments on biology and biotechnology and work on space materials science. They also performed extensive maintenance and repair work on the damaged hatch of the Kvant-2-module. This repair was only partially successful.

Expedition Conclusion

The crew left on Soyuz TM-10 on 7 December 1990. The expedition in total lasted 130 days, 20 hour and 35 minutes. The crew completed 2070 orbits of the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

.