Soyuz T-15 (, Union T-15) was a crewed mission to the Mir and Salyut 7 space stations and was part of the Soyuz programme. It marked the final flight of the Soyuz-T spacecraft, the third generation Soyuz spacecraft, which had been in service for seven years from 1979 to 1986. This mission marked the first time that a spacecraft visited, and docked with, two space stations in the same mission. Crew Backup crew Mission parameters Mass: 6850 kg Perigee: 331 km Apogee: 366 km Inclination: 51.6° Period: 91.5 minutes Mission highlights Soyuz T-15 was both the first expedition to Mir and the last to Salyut 7. Flight to Mir Due to the pressure of launching Mir in time for the 27th Communist Party Congress, mission planners were left without the newer Soyuz-TM spacecraft or any of the planned modules to launch to the station at first. It was decided to launch an older Soyuz-T as Soyuz T-15 on a dual mission to both Mir and Salyut 7. Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyov first docked with the Mir space station on 15 March 1986 after their launch on 13 March. Plans for Mir intended that only the newer Soyuz-TM would dock with Mir's forward port, leaving the aft port free for arriving Progress spacecraft. However, the older Soyuz-T was not equipped with the Kurs approach system used on Mir's front port, but only with the older Igla approach system used for Mir's aft port. Therefore, Soyuz T-15 had to approach Mir's aft port, and then manually maneuver around the station to dock manually at the forward port. At 20 km Soyuz T-15's Igla system acquired its counterpart on Mir's aft port. At 200 meters, the Igla system was shut off, and the crew manually maneuvered around the station to dock at the front port. For this manual approach, the same laser range finder was used as for the Soyuz T-13 docking with the uncooperative Salyut 7 station in 1985. During their nearly 55-day stay on Mir, the crew unloaded two Progress spacecraft, launched after their arrival. The mission was mostly designed to test out the new space station's systems since it had been launched with little scientific equipment, most of which would have to wait for the launch of add-on modules. Despite Mir's name literally meaning "Peace", US officials during this time accused the Soviet Union of performing military experiments on