page_title: Mir EO-4
section_title: Mir Aragatz
hierarchical_section_title: Mir EO-4 / Mission highlights / Mir Aragatz
caption_attribution_description: English: The official crew patch for the Soviet Soyuz TM-7 mission, which delivered the EO-4 and Aragatz crews to the space station Mir.
context_page_description: Mir EO-4 was the fourth long-duration expedition to the Soviet space station Mir. 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. The third crew member of EO-4, Valeri Polyakov, was already aboard Mir, having arrived in August 1988 part way through the previous expedition, Mir EO-3.
  The expedition lasted for five months, and at its conclusion Mir was left unmanned until the launch of Mir EO-5 in September 1989. This ended a continuous habitation of the space station which began in February 1987, with the arrival of the crew of Mir EO-2.
context_section_description: 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. Chrétien's flight was referred to as the French Aragatz mission. This was Chrétien's second spaceflight, his first was a short mission to Salyut 7, which was launched with the spacecraft Soyuz T-6, and lasted for about a week. After 24.8 days aboard the station, Chrétien returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-6 on 21 December.
  A highlight of the Aragatz mission was the spacewalk which was performed by Volkov and Chrétien on 9 December 1988, and lasted for 5 hours and 57 minutes. It was the first spacewalk conducted by someone not from the Soviet or U.S. space programs. Its purpose was to install the 240 kg French experimental deployable structure, known as ERA, and a panel of material samples.
  Return of Soyuz TM-6
  On December 15, 1988, Titov and Manarov's 359th day in space, the EO-3 crew officially broke the spaceflight duration record by the required 10%; the record had previously been set by Yuri Romanenko, who had a 326-day spaceflight aboard Mir during EO-2. Both the French mission and EO-3 ended when Chrétien, Titov, and Manarov landed in the spacecraft Soyuz TM-6 on December 21, which occurred six hours after undocking from Mir.
caption: Soyuz TM-7 insignia
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