Mir, a history of the mission. Click and explore it . Mir opens for business. The first crew opens the station and then pays a visit to Mir's predecessor, Salyut 7.
Docking is difficult.
In an unscheduled spacewalk, cosmonauts find a bag of trash stuck on Mir's docking port. The cosmonauts remove the trash and the docking is completed, putting the mission back on track. Beginning in 1987 long-duration expeditions would meet and replace each other on board Mir, starting an almost continuous presence of humans in space. Mir's staff operations go uninterrupted until 1989. A Soyuz spacecraft, damaged on the ground and unable to fly, kept a replacement crew from arriving at Mir in time to relieve a departing crew.