MIR: Expedition 24
(EO-24)

Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing 30 km southeast of Arkalyk.

Following a two day solo flight Soyuz TM-26 docked with the MIR space station on August 07, 1997. Both cosmonauts and Michael Foale became the 24th resident crew.

The first EVA by Anatoli Soloviyov and Pavel Vinogradov was performed on August 22, 1997 (3h 16m) into the module Spektr. Pavel Vinogradov worked inside the Spektr module while Anatoli Soloviyov helped him from the transfer compartment (perekhodniy ostek), the central node where all the big modules and the Soyuz transport craft are docked.

The second EVA by Anatoli Soloviyov and Michael Foale occured on September 06, 1997 (7h 0m). They failed to locate any punctures in Spektr during an otherwise successful spacewalk. The spacewalkers used the Strela crane to transfer from the Kvant2 to Spektr. Anatoli Soloviyov cut away insulation to inspect the area around the radiator and solar panel mounting.

The main computer was exchanged during the docking of STS-86.

Anatoli Soloviyov and Michael Foale performed the third EVA on October 20, 1997 (6h 38m). They worked inside the depressurized MIR base block transfer compartment and the damaged Spektr module to connect new cables to the Spektr module, restoring the capability to point the Spektr solar arrays.

The fourth EVA by the same cosmonauts was conducted on November 03, 1997 (6h 04m). They removed an old solar panel from Kvant. The solar panel was retracted on command, removed from the Kvant module, and stowed on the exterior of the core module. The outer Kvant2 hatch did not seal correctly after the EVA, and the inner hatch was used to seal the station. The Sputnik-40 1/3-scale model of PS-1 ("Sputnik") was hand-launched during the EVA into a 383 x 391 km x 51.6 deg orbit.

Anatoli Soloviyov and Pavel Vinogradov performed the fifth EVA on November 06, 1997 (6h 12m). The Russian MSB-SO solar array, which has been stored on the outside of the SO module since its delivery to the station by Atlantis on mission STS-74 was installed on the Kvant module replacing the elderly MSB-4. The Kvant2 airlock hatch was thought to be sealed after the EVA, but the ShSO (Airlock special compartment) of Kvant2 was still leaking. The PNO (Instrument-science compartment), the next room in, continued to be used as the airlock until a new outer hatch seal could be delivered by the next Progress cargo ship.

On January 08, 1998 (3h 06m) Anatoli Soloviyov and Pavel Vinogradov went out the space station for the sixth spacewalk to recover some equipment and begin repairs to the leaking Kvant2 airlock hatch. They discovered a bolt on the hatch was not tight, causing a 10 mm gap. Following the repair the hatch was still leaking slightly.

Anatoli Soloviyov and the new research cosmonaut David Wolf (had replaced Michael Foale) performed the final EVA on January 14, 1998 (3h 52m) to inspect the station interior.

Common work with the visiting crews of STS-86 (September 27, - October 03, 1997) and STS-89 (January 24, - January 29, 1998) was done.