Subject: MIRNEWS.347 FIRE ON BOARD MIR
From: "C.M. van den Berg" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 20:22:51 +0100

MIRNEWS.347                         24 FEBRUARY 1997

FIRE ON BOARD OF THE MIR-SPACESTATION:

Radiotraffic during VHF windows for our position in the mor
ning of 24.02.1997 revealed that something serious had happe
ned on board MIR. Somewhat earlier there was already an indi
cation: a direct TV-link from MIR with Oberpfaffenhofen via
Altair-1 for this morning did not take place. During the 3d
pass for our position (orb. 62943, 1341-1348UTC)  the cloven
hoof came out: in a conversation with his consultants on earth
Ewald reported about a fire on board. This fire broke out last
night. An oxygen cartridge caught fire and a grey smoke spead
out in all parts of the complex. Korzun and Kaleri fought
against  the fire with extinguishers and the others tried to
push back the smoke. All crewmembers had to wear gas-masks.
This lasted two and a half hours the maximum endurance of
those masks. The extinction water caused a high humidity and
the temperature of the atmosphere was higher than normal.
Ewald did not get smoke or just a little bit in his longs and
to remain on the safe side he swallowed coal- and vitamineta-

blets and  milkproducts. He was very tired but he did not
think that this had been caused by something like pollution,
but by the lack of sleep. He went asleep at 6 o'clock in the
morning and woke up 4 hours later. Jerry Linenger was very
busy collecting airsamples for pollution tests. He also tried
to determine the amount of formaldehyde. The crew of six was
in the Base Block when the fire began in an adjacent room.
Russian toxicologists are analysing telemetric data about
MIR's on board atmosphere. The crew already collected urine-
and salivasamples and later on they got instructions to col
lect bloodsamples and to do additional medical tests. In the
course of the day a TV pressconference was on schedule and a
lot of journalist were waiting in Oberpfaffenhofen. Ewald told
that the events had caused such a mess in the station that it
was not convenient to have that TV session today. As a pallia
tive Ewald answered some questions about the nightly occuren
ces and his statements almost fully confirmed the information
gathered by me for this report. 

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