Launch from Baikonur; 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
seventh resident crew
of the station. 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.
