Soyuz TM-11 was launched the same day as STS-35.

11th expedition to Mir. Toyohiro Akiyama was a reporter/space tourist for a Japanese television network.

Spent 175 days docked to Mir. Its launch shroud and Soyuz booster were painted with the Japanese flag and advertisements. A camera inside the descent module filmed the cosmonauts during ascent for Akiyama’s network.

Viktor Afanaseyev, Musa Manarov (on his second Mir visit), and Japanese television journalist Toyohiro Akiyama were welcomed aboard Mir by Soviet cosmonauts. Akiyama’s network, the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), paid for the flight. The Soviets called this their first commercial spaceflight and claimed to have earned $14 million. The journalist was scheduled to make one 10-min TV broadcast and two 20-min radio broadcasts each day. Electrical power and video and TV system incompatibilities forced the Japanese to make extensive use of converters. His equipment, which weighed about 170 kg, was delivered by Progress-M spacecraft and set up in advance by Manakov and Strekalov. On December 5 Akiyama’s couch was transferred to Soyuz-TM 10. On December 8 Manakov and Strekalov commenced loading Soyuz-TM 10’s descent module with film and experiment results. TBS broadcast Akiyama’s landing live from Kazakhstan.

The first EVA occurred on January 07, 1991 (5h 18m). Viktor Afanasiyev and Musa Manarov brought with them a replacement hinge for the Kvant2 airlock hatch. The cosmonauts underwent a medical exam as part of their EVA preparations on January 03, 1991. On this date - Christmas Day in the Russian Orthodox religious calendar - the cosmonauts gave engineers and flight controllers in the TsUP a present by successfully replacing the hinge damaged six months earlier during Mir-6. The work was described as "very complex and very delicate" because the hinge was not designed for EVA replacement. The replacement hinge was designed to be installed by weightless cosmonauts working in pressure suits with EVA tools. The EVA was scheduled to last 4 hours, 20 minutes. Four hours into the EVA Viktor Afanasiyev and Musa Manarov entered the SALC and closed and sealed the hatch to check their work, then reopened it and egressed to carry out other EVA tasks. These included moving parts and equipment for the upcoming solar array transfer EVA to Kvant2's exterior; removing a camera from the Kvant2 "video spectrum complex" (the Gemma-2 unit for Earth environment monitoring) for repair inside Mir; and removing for return to Earth a space exposure cassette of superconductive materials.

The second spacewalk was conducted on January 23, 1991 (5h 33m). Viktor Afanasiyev and Musa Manarov installed the 45-kg (99-lb) telescoping Strela boom on a Mir base block launch shroud attachment. Strela ("arrow") was installed primarily for moving the 500-kg (1100- lb) solar arrays on Kristall to new locations on Kvant1, but would also be used for moving cosmonauts and equipment around Mir's exterior and as a mobile handrail. The task was originally scheduled to occur over two EVAs. This EVA lasted almost 2 hours longer than planned, but concluded with Strela entirely installed. To test the device, Musa Manarov rode the end of the boom while Viktor Afanasiyev operated its cranks. Before closing out the EVA the cosmonauts removed the Ferrit space exposure experiment from Kvant2 and replaced it with the Sprut-5 device for measuring particle flow near Mir.

On January 26, 1991 (6h 20m) both cosmonauts performed the third EVA. The cosmonauts installed two supports for the Kristall solar arrays on either side of Kvant1. They worked near the Kvant1 Kurs system antenna, which was used to guide Progress-M and Soyuz-TM spacecraft during docking at the Mir complex aft port. They also installed laser retroreflectors.

Unmanned cargo spaceship Progress M-6 docked with the station on January 16, 1991. The freighter delivered new life support equipment to replace life-expired equipment aboard. Progress M-6 undocked on March 15, 1991 and was destroyed in reentry on the same day.