 Additional talks with Glavkosmos were subsequently initiated by CLSR director Prof. Boris Bonev, and an official agreement for a joint Soviet-Bulgarian mission was signed on 22 August 1986.Although similar in arrangement to the previous Interkosmos flight, this mission was a bilateral scientific agreement independent of the Interkosmos programme.Bulgaria agreed to pay for the mission by designing and manufacturing the equipment for it, and then providing it to the Soviet Union.