In July 1987 visited the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the former UdSSR, N. I. Ryshkow, Austria and submitted the then Federal Government in Vienna the idea to implementation of a common manned space flight to the space station MIR. In line with a cognoscenti-meeting in October 1987 in Moscow the options for the implementation of the flight at for both sides acceptable conditions were discussed.
On 5 April 1988 the resolution of the flight of an Austrian with the space station MIR was carried out by the Austrian Federal Government, and at the same time an advertised bidding for cosmonaut candidates and proposals for possible experiments was published.
In July 1988 the first official round of negotiations about the common manned space flight started and in autumn the functionings at the selected experiments began.
On 11 October 1988 the respective heads of government F. Vranitzky and N. I. Ryshkow signed the agreement on the flight of an Austrian cosmonaut with the space station MIR in Moscow.
On 24 November 1988 in the same year the contract of the accomplishment of the enterprise between the “Federal Minister of Science and Research” of the republic of Austria, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hans Tuppy, and the Allunions-ecconomy-association “Licensintorg”, which represented the Soviet Space Agency Glavkosmos, was concluded.