Mission type Mir visiting crew Arrived aboard Soyuz TM-5 | Space Station Mir | |
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Mission duration 9.84 days (launch to landing) Began 7 June 1988 (1988-06-07) Ended 17 June 1988 (1988-06-18) | ||
Mir EP-2 was a visiting expedition to the Mir space station conducted in June 1988 by cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev, Viktor Savinykh and Aleksandr Aleksandrov. Launched aboard the Soyuz TM-5 spacecraft, the crew spent ten days in space before returning to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-4. The mission occurred while the EO-3 crew were aboard Mir.
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Solovyev commanded the mission, with Savinykh as his flight engineer, while Bulgarian Aleksandr Panayatov Aleksandrov flew as a research cosmonaut. Aleksandrov was the second Bulgarian to fly in space, the first being Georgi Ivanov, who flew on Soyuz 33. Ivanov failed to reach the Salyut 6 space station as his mission was aborted prior to docking due to an engine failure aboard his spacecraft Soyuz 33. As a result, prior to EP-2, Bulgaria was the only Eastern European Soviet ally to not have one of its citizens visit a Soviet space station.
Experiments
During his visit, Aleksandrov used nearly 2,000 kg of equipment delivered by Progress spacecraft to conduct 46 experiments in the Shipka programme.
Landing
The visiting EP-2 crew returned to Earth about a week later in the spacecraft Soyuz TM-4, leaving TM-5 as the station's lifeboat.