Getting ready for the guests. Stowing extra things behind the panels. We put on new “Penguin” flight suits, since the old ones were already worn out. We’re supposed to change them every month. A few words about them. In 1973, when I flew on the “Soyuz-13” spacecraft, I had to test this load suit for the first time. The thing is, we’re in spacesuits inside the transport ship during the ascent phase, during rendezvous, docking, and descent to Earth. All the rest of the time, in the transport ship and on the station, we wear a lightweight cotton suit called “Penguin,” sewn throughout with rubber bungees that stretch with any movement of arms, legs, or body, loading the muscles. This was pleasant when your whole body was pulled by bungees, and in a short flight you could put up with it, but in a long flight, when you don’t just fly in the station but live in it, it’s extremely inconvenient — it gets in the way, irritates, and restricts movements during various experiments, repair work, etc. So Tolya and I decided to remove all the bungees and flew the whole mission in practically ordinary thin cotton suits, compensating for the load with intense work during the daily program and exercise on the treadmill and bicycle ergometer, going beyond the exercises prescribed in the onboard documentation and inventing our own.

I checked the “Fiton”: in addition to the three dried pods, seven new green ones have appeared. Today we heard on the radio, on the “Mayak” program, an announcement that for the first time in a biological experiment with plants, a unique result has been achieved — a plant has completed its full development cycle in space, from seed to seed. Today we assembled the “Piramig,” EFO, and PSN equipment. For the guys we prepared sleeping bags, putting clean sheet liners inside. They’ll sleep in the same place as the crew during the French expedition. At 8:11 PM there was the launch of the “Soyuz T-7” spacecraft with the crew of Popov, Serebrov, and Savitskaya. They switched on a live broadcast of the launch for us. At that moment we were passing over the Far East coast. We heard the crew up to 220 seconds out of the 530 seconds of their insertion into orbit. Tomorrow is the meeting. I don’t like it when the established rhythm of life is disrupted, but I think it’ll be easier with them, and they won’t interfere with us, but rather everything will be fine, since Lyosha Popov and I trained for 3 years in one crew and know each other well. Before bed, two more shadow passes: I’ll try working with the EFO and the PSN camera on the night horizon and stars.