Subject: mirnews.344
From: "C.M. van den Berg" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 09:47:55 +0100

Hello Jonathan.  I am nettable now and so (Hans Janssen is on vacation) I
send you my MIRNEWS.344 in this way.   

Kindest regards.   ChrisMIRNEWS.344                      10 FEBRUARY 1997

Launch Soyuz-TM25:   This ship with on board the reliefcrew for
the 23d Main Expedition (M.E.) to MIR and the German astronaut
Reinhold Ewald, who will in cooperation with the Russians 
execute the MIR-97 program, has been launched from Baykonur on
10.02.1997 at  14hrs 09mins 30secs UTC.  The callsign of the
crew is Sirius (so Sirius-1, 2 and 3).  The commander is
Tsibliyev, now making his 2d flight in space and the
board-engineer is Lazutkin who did not fly thusfar. 

Progress-M33: There must always be a free docking port for the
new ship. Before the flight of the Soyuz-TM24 the Russians
undocked the Pr-M as soon as they were sure that the systems of
the new ship were functioning normally, so at abt 1 day after
launch.  Some orbits after the undocking the freighter entered
the earth's atmosphere and burnt up.  To begin with the Pr-M32
the Russians changed this routine and the Pr-M32 flew
autonomously  until 18.08.96, redocked to the complex and left
MIR  and burnt up in the atmosphere  on 20.11.1996.   The
Progress-M33 separated from MIR's aft (Kvant-1 +X axis) on
6.02.1997 at 12hrs 13mins 56secs and will make an autonomous
flight until the beginning of March '97. 

Soyuz-TM24: This ship had been docked at the forward dockingport
(transitionsection - P.Kh.O.  -X axis).  This port has been
chosen for the docking of the S-TM25. In the future the Russians
refrain from the use of the approach system Kurs in Soyuz-TM and
Progress-M ships.  This decision has been taken due to problems
about the delivery of that systeem between RKK Energiya and the
factory NPO Kharton in Kharkov, Ukraine. 
On 7.02.1997 at 16hrs 28mins 01secs the S-TM24 separated from MIR
and manned by Korzun, Kaleri and Linenger made an autonomous
flight concluded by the docking of that ship at the aft (Kvant-1
+X axis) dockingport that day at 16hrs 51mins 27secs. 
Undoubtedly this has been quite an experience for Jerry Linenger
who came by Atlantis and will return with the shuttle. 

Dockings of S-TM ships will be executed manually by the commander
and those of unmanned Pr-M freighters will be done by the crew on
board MIR by the use of the Remote Control system TORU. 

ETA (expected time of arrival) of Soyuz-TM25 at MIR: 

S-TM25 has to dock to the MIR's forward (P.Kh.O.  -X axis)
docking port on 12.02.1997 at abt. 1550UTC.  This is 3 minutes
after the first pass for both objects over Western Europe. During
this pass (1541-1547UTC) we can expect communications about the
approach on 121.750 mc FM-N and the 143.625 mc. 

Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202