Kvant-1 and its FSM were launched on March 30, 1987 – at the time of the launch, the Mir station was staffed by the EO-2 crew, which had already docked on the front port with the Soyuz TM-2 spacecraft. On April 9, Kvant-1 achieved a soft dock with the aft port on Mir. However, the Kvant-1 was not able to achieve a hard dock which meant that the two spacecraft were only loosely connected – in this configuration, Mir could not orient itself or else damage would occur.