Mir EP-2 was a visiting expedition to the

Mir ''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...

space station conducted in June 1988 by

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

s Anatoly Solovyev,

Viktor Savinykh Viktor Petrovich Savinykh (born 7 March 1940) is a Soviet cosmonaut. Selected as a cosmonaut on 1 December 1978, he flew as Flight Engineer on Soyuz T-4, Soyuz T-13 and Soyuz TM-5, and has spent 252 days 17 hours 38 minutes in space. Savinykh re ...

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. Solovyev commanded the mission, with Savinykh as his flight engineer, while

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

Aleksandr Panayatov Aleksandrov Aleksandr Panayotov Aleksandrov ( bg, Александър Панайотов Александров) (born December 1, 1951) is a retired Bulgarian cosmonaut. He is the second Bulgarian to have flown to space, behind Georgi Ivanov. Biography ...

flew as a research cosmonaut. Aleksandrov was the second Bulgarian to fly in space, the first being Georgi Ivanov, who flew on

Soyuz 33 Soyuz 33 (russian: Союз 33, ''Union 33'') was an April, 1979, Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station.The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-33.htm It was the ninth mission to the ...

. Ivanov failed to reach the

Salyut 6 Salyut 6 (russian: Салют-6; lit. Salute 6), DOS-5, was a Soviet orbital space station, the eighth station of the Salyut programme. It was launched on 29 September 1977 by a Proton rocket. Salyut 6 was the first space station to recei ...

space station as his mission was aborted prior to docking due to an engine failure aboard his spacecraft

. As a result, prior to EP-2, Bulgaria was the only

Eastern European Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...

Soviet ally to not have one of its citizens visit a Soviet space station.

Crew

Experiments

During his visit, Aleksandrov used nearly 2,000 kg of equipment delivered by

Progress spacecraft The Progress (russian: Прогресс) is a Russian expendable cargo spacecraft. Its purpose is to deliver the supplies needed to sustain a human presence in orbit. While it does not carry a crew, it can be boarded by astronauts when docked t ...

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.

References

{{Mir expeditions 1988 in the Soviet Union 1988 in spaceflight Mir Bulgaria–Soviet Union relations