The expedition began in November 1988, when crew members Commander Aleksandr Volkov and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev arrived at the station via the spacecraft Soyuz TM-7.
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From November 28 to December 21, 1988, there were six people aboard the station: the three crew members of EO-4, Titov and Manarov who were finishing EO-3, and the visiting French cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chrétien who had launched aboard Soyuz TM-7 on 26 November.
Soyuz | Soyuz TMA-8 | Soyuz TM-7 | Soyuz-2 | Soyuz 12 | Soyuz 11 | Soyuz TMA-9 | Soyuz TMA-7 | Soyuz TMA-07M | Soyuz TMA-06M | Soyuz TM-32 | Soyuz TM-31 | Soyuz TM-18 | Soyuz (spacecraft) | Soyuz (rocket family) | Soyuz Molodyozhi | Soyuz 37 | Soyuz 32 | Soyuz 31 | Military Soyuz | Apollo–Soyuz Test Project | Apollo-Soyuz Test Project |
Subsequently, Aleksandrov was assigned to the prime crew of the Soyuz TM-5 mission to the Mir space station.
After two years of training he was chosen for the mission, and launched on October 2, 1991 together with the Russian cosmonauts Alexander A. Volkov and the Kazakh Toktar Aubakirov in Soyuz TM-13 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport.
From 1 August to 10 December 1990 he was the flight engineer on Soyuz TM-10's flight to Mir, with Gennadi Manakov and Japanese reporter-cosmonaut Toyohiro Akiyama.
His second spaceflight, launched on Soyuz TM-18 in January 1994, would last 437 days, and as of 2010, still holds the record for the longest ever spaceflight.
The crew launched by Soyuz TM-32, which included the first paying space tourist Dennis Tito, were returned to Earth in May aboard Soyuz TM-31.
It carried two cosmonauts and a South African tourist, Mark Shuttleworth, to the International Space Station (ISS).
Soyuz TM-31, the first Soyuz mission to the International Space Station
Soyuz TM-32, the second Soyuz mission to the International Space Station
On October 2, 1991 he launched with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Volkov as flight commander, and the Austrian research cosmonaut Franz Viehböck in Soyuz TM-13 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport, and spent over eight days in space.
The French president at the time, François Mitterrand, insisted on attending the launch of the Soyuz TM-7, of which Frenchman Chrétien was a crew member.