Aragatz

Aragatz was the 1988 Franco-Soviet visitor mission that brought CNES spationaut Jean-Loup Chretien back to Mir. He launched on Soyuz TM-7 with Aleksandr Volkov and Sergei Krikalev on November 26, 1988, after the launch was delayed so French president Francois Mitterrand could attend. The crew docked with Mir two days later, temporarily raising the station population to six while the Mir EO-4 handover began. Chretien returned to Earth on Soyuz TM-6 with Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on December 21, while Volkov and Krikalev remained aboard with Valeri Polyakov. The mission's centerpiece was the December 9 EVA by Chretien and Volkov. ESA lists the spacewalk at 5 hours and 57 minutes; Spacefacts rounds the same activity to 6 hours. They installed the Echantillons materials-exposure experiment and worked on the French ERA deployable structure, making Chretien the first non-American and non-Soviet person to conduct an EVA.