Mir EO-12

Mir EO-12 was the twelfth resident expedition to the Mir space station. Anatoly Solovyev and Sergei Avdeyev launched with French research cosmonaut Michel Tognini on Soyuz TM-15 on July 27, 1992, docked with Mir on July 29, and took over resident operations after the Soyuz TM-14 crew departed. The expedition supported geophysics, materials-science, biotechnology, astronomy, and medical research while also hosting the French Antares visiting program. Solovyev and Avdeyev performed four EVAs during the mission, most notably the work to install and connect the VDU thruster package on the Sofora structure and to prepare Mir's docking systems for later traffic.