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Mir operations in 1989 Missions to Mir in 1989:
Expedition 4 (EO-4) Cosmonauts Aleksandr Volkov, Sergei Krikalev who arrived at Mir in November 1988 and Valery Polyakov, who had been working on Mir since August 1988, met the new 1989 aboard the station. (52) However, on April 28, 1989, the trio returned to Earth, leaving the station unoccupied for the first time since February 1987. The pressure damage in the instrument compartment of the Soyuz spacecraft and its resulting damage, left the Mir program without a transport vehicle to deliver the new crew to the outpost. Expedition 5 (EO-5) The manned operations resumed in September 1989, when the Soyuz TM-9 spacecraft docked to Mir, delivering the fifth long-duration expedition, including commander Aleksandr Viktorenko and flight engineer Aleksandr Serebrov to the station. The crew was preceded by the arrival to Mir on August, 25, 1989 of the new version of the cargo ship, designated Progress M. Also, on Dec. 6, 1989, Mir grew with the new module, as the Kvant-2, featuring a large airlock, docked to the station. As its predecessor, the Kvant-2 succeeded docking at the station on a second attempt. The first one failed due to the failure of the Kurs rendezvous system. (52) The fifth long-term crew, which started a decade of manned occupation of Mir, had remained onboard the station until February 1990.
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