Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing
140 km northeast of Dzheskasgan.
The original launch date November 21,
1988 was moved back to permit French president François Mitterrand to
attend the launch.
Soyuz TM-7 carried the second joined mission USSR -
France. Following a two day solo flight Soyuz TM-7 docked with the MIR-Kvant
complex on November 28, 1988. Scientific work with the
third resident crew was
done. Aleksandr
Volkov and Sergei
Krikalyov together with Valeri
Polyakov became the
fourth resident crew.
An
EVA by Aleksandr
Volkov and Jean-Loup
Chrétien was performed on December 09, 1988 (5h 57m).
The cosmonauts depressurized the multiport docking adapter and clambered
outside MIR. Jean-Loup
Chrétien was first out. He installed handrails, then
attached the 15.5 kg (34 lb) Échantillons experiment rack to the
handrails by springs and hooks. He also attached electrical wires leading from
the rack to MIR’s power supply. Échantillons carried five
technological experiments with applications to the Hermes shuttle program.
Aleksandr
Volkov and Jean-Loup
Chrétien then assembled the 240 kg (530 lb)
ERA experiment. They attached a mount to handrails on
the frustum linking the multiport docking unit to the small-diameter portion of
the work compartment. After resolving problems with cables linking
ERA to a control panel inside MIR, they attached the
folded
ERA structure to a support arm on the platform. The
structure was designed to unfold to form a flat six-sided structure 1 metre
deep by 3.8 metres across. From inside MIR, Sergei
Krikalyov commanded the structure to unfold, but to no avail.
Aleksandr
Volkov then kicked
ERA, causing it to unfold properly. According to
Sergei
Krikalyov, taking the
ERA outside helped relieve the crowding problems.
Jean-Loup
Chrétien became the first non-American and non Soviet
cosmonaut to perform a spacewalk.
During this mission experiments in 16
different fields were performed as topografic and spectrografic research of the
Earth surface, biological and medical research (incl. blood and heart
tests).
