Salyut 7
Expedition 6

Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; landing 55 km northeast of Arkalyk.

Following a two day solo flight Soyuz T-15 docked with the new space station MIR on March 15, 1986. Plans for MIR intended that only the newer Soyuz TM would dock with MIR's forward port, leaving the aft port free for arriving Progress spacecraft. However, the older Soyuz T actually used for the first Soyuz T-15 mission to MIR was not equipped with the Kurs approach system used on MIR's front port, but only with the older Igla approach system used for MIR's aft port. Therefore Soyuz T-15 had to approach MIR's aft port, and then manually maneuver around the station to dock manually at the forward port. At 20 km Soyuz T-15's Igla system acquired its counterpart on MIR's aft port. At 200 meters, the Igla system was shut off, and the crew manually maneuvered around the station to dock at the front port. For this manual approach, the same laser range finder was used as for the Soyuz T-13 docking with the uncooperative Salyut 7 station in 1985. The cosmonauts became the first resident crew of MIR.

In preparation for the trip to Salyut 7, the crew loaded Soyuz T-15 with their personal belongings, plants grown on MIR, and other items. At that time Salyut 7 was still 4000 km ahead of MIR in a lower orbit. Therefore on May 04, 1986 MIR was lowered by 13 km in order to speed the approach to Salyut 7 and conserve Soyuz T-15's limited fuel supply for the transfer. On May 05, 1986, they undocked from MIR for a day long journey to the Salyut 7 space station and stayed there for 50 days.

Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Soloviyov conducted two EVAs while staying on Salyut 7 on May 28, 1986 (3h 50m) and May 31, 1986 (5h 00m), repairing heat, power and environmental control systems and collecting experiment results, experimental apparatus, and samples of materials. The crew removed 20 instruments with a total mass of 350 to 400 kg from Salyut 7 before returning to MIR. After done work the cosmonauts returned to the MIR space station on June 26, 1986. It was the first transfer from one space station to an other space station in space history.