Yesterday I didn’t write up the blood-draw experiment. There’s an interesting moment there. We have two plastic boxes with holes filled with saline solution. You have to prick your finger to draw blood with a pipette and fill those holes. I pricked two fingers and there was barely any blood — the problem was that when I drew blood, my right hand was doing the pricking while my left hand, the one being pricked, kept flinching.

So of course the pricks were shallow. A nurse wouldn’t spare you — she holds with one hand and pricks with the other. Eventually, with much suffering for the sake of medicine, I managed to collect enough blood.

Today is the launch of the Soyuz T-6 crew: V. Dzhanibekov, S. Ivanchenkov, and Jean-Loup Chretien. Launch was at 19:29:48. Before the Soyuz T-6 launch, as we passed over Baikonur, they patched us into the launch commands during our comm session. We hear the comm operator say: “All nominal. Liftoff contact. She’s off.”

That’s it! We’re no longer alone in space — our comrades are with us. True, they’re on a slightly lower orbit, but tomorrow they’ll climb up to us and dock.

All day we’re preparing for the crew’s arrival. We stashed everything extra behind the panels. We vacuum the ventilator grilles — you find all sorts of things on them: a knife we couldn’t find, an adapter from the “Rodnik” system, and assorted small stuff — washers, screws, bolts that flew away during station activation work. Lint also accumulates from the station’s decorative upholstery and clothing. Lots of metal shavings too — we cut, chisel, and turn masses of nuts and bolts here. So everything goes flying.

We ran the “Astra” experiment studying the atmosphere around the station. Like a planet, it acquires an atmosphere from outgassing of materials, paneling, plastics, and engine combustion products. Understanding the distribution of this atmosphere around the station — which is uneven — is critically important for analyzing results from various scientific instruments.

We assembled the BSP seismometer array to register micro-accelerations from vibrations of the many operating instruments, engines, and our own activities. In the evening we demonstrated the MKF-6 camera, since we’ll need to install “Piramig” on that window. It has a large diameter and excellent optical characteristics.

Right now I want to photograph the Sun. We’re waiting for it to set, and we can’t find the light filter for the 500mm lens. We’re looking at each other and each one thinks the other put it somewhere and forgot. It wouldn’t take long to start a quarrel. But thank goodness, we found it. 1 AM — we’re shooting solar refraction as it sets.

The head of the medical team came on comm and said they’re concerned about my elevated pulse. At rest — 90, after exercise — 120, with slow recovery. I answered that they should worry less; everything is fine, and an elevated pulse is just my personal characteristic, even on Earth. Besides, there was a lot going on with the visiting expedition, and we’re tired.