MIR: Expedition 8
(EO-8)

Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing 68 km southeast of Dzheskasgan.

First commercial flight in Soviet space flight history. Akiyama's network, the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), paid for the flight. The Soviets called this their first commercial spaceflight and claimed to have earned $14 million.

Following a two day solo flight the Soyuz docked with the Soyuz TM-10-Kvant1-MIR-Kristall-Kvant2 complex on 04.12.1990. Japanese television journalist Akiyama made daily TV broadcast. Scientific work in Earth observation, biology, medicine and materials sciences with the seventh resident crew of the station was done. Then Afanasiyev and Manarov became the eighth resident crew

Both cosmonauts performed four EVAs on 07.01.1991 (5h 18m), 23.01.1991 (5h 33m), 26.01.1991 (6h 20m) and 25.04.1991 (3h 34m). During the EVA's they completed the repair of the Kvant hatch, installed the Strela boom and solar array supports on MIR, and finally inspected the Kurs docking system antenna.

Unmanned cargo spaceships Progress M-6 and M-7 delivered fuel and other supplies to the space station.