MIR: Expedition 21
(EO-21)

Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing 107 km southwest of Akmola.

Following a two day solo flight Soyuz TM-23 docked with the MIR space station on February 23, 1996. Both cosmonauts became the 21st resident crew after crew exchanging.

Yuri Onufriyenko and Yuri Usachyov performed six EVAs on March 15, 1996 (5h 51m), May 20, 1996 (5h 20m), May 24, 1996 (5h 43m), May 30, 1996 (4h 20m), June 06, 1996 (3h 34m) and June 13, 1996 (5h 42m) carrying out following work: installation of the STRELA telescopic boom, the MSCA solar array, the multi-spectral scanner, exchanging materials samples and deploying of the Ferma 3-truss (an automatic deploying failed before, so had to to it manual).

Protein crystal growth experiments were done. More experiments in materials science using high temperture melting oven "Optizon" were carried out. Other experiments were Visual Earth Observation and medical research. The new module Priroda arrived on April 26, 1996. Supplies arrived with cargo spacecraft Progress M-31.

The MIR resident crew was visited by the crew of STS-76. Since that time (March 24, 1996) U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid completed the 21st resident crew.