Subject: mirnews.364
From: "C.M. van den Berg" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 20:33:25 +0200

MIRNEWS.364                                       27 JUNE 1997

    Progress-M34: The Russians abandoned the plan to finish  the  existence
   of this freighter today. Pr-M34 is still needed for Telemetry analyses, 
  necessary   for   the   investigations   on   the    cause    of    the  
 'mini-catastrophe. For the time being it is extremely difficult to  get   
a reliable picture of that what happened due  to  the  huge  amount  of   
versions and rumours about the failed docking attempt. When Pr-M34 will   
enter the earth's atmosphere and decay has been not decided,  it  might   
take place on 28 or 29.07.97.

    Inquiries: An extensive commission under the chairmanschip of the  Head
   of  the  RKA  (Russian  Space  Agency),  Yuriy  Koptev,  discussed  the 
  situation on 26.07.97 and decided to delegate the investigations to one  
 or more working groups. These specialists will pay extensive  attention   
to the Telemetry from Pr-M34 after the undocking until  the  collision.   
Already before the session of the commission Koptev gave a statement in   
which  he  emphasized  that  the  operations  with  MIR  will  not   be   
interrupted, that the crew will not be evacuated and that  Russia  will   
perform  her  obligations  in  the  framework  of   the   international   
cooperation. (How far political intentions will conflict with technical   
imperfections and even impossibilities certainly will turn out  in  due   
course.)

    Intentions and options known up to now (27.06.1997 1200UTC): A  lot  of
   press-releases speak about the necessity  to make a spacewalk (EVA) for 
  the inspection and eventual repair of the little gap or  crack  in  the  
 hull of Module Spektr. Such an EVA will certainly be executed, but this   
will  take  place  not  before  the  arrival  of  the  next   cargoship   
Progress-M35. The first EVA will be a so called 'internal  EVA'  using   
the transition section (P.Kh.O.) as an airlock via which the cosmonauts   
can enter the Spektr.
  Module Spektr: For a long time this module was the 'base and  home'  of  
 the American astronauts. In this module Foale disposed about a  lot  of   
equimpent and experiments. The  crew  has    to determine what still is
available and can be saved and what is lost.    For the time being a lot of
experiments cannot be executed and in  fact    the experimental program for
this expedition is almost fully suspended.    One of the 4 solarpanels of
Spektr has been severely damaged,  possibly    beyond repair. The other 3
might be able to deliver power, but due  the    disconnection of cables,
some of those cables had even  to  be  cut  in    two, they are out of
order. The damaged one and one of the other 3  are    badly needed for
powersupply for the whole complex. The event caused  a    powerreduction of
appr. 50% . Before I spoke  about  a  little  gap  or    crack and not as
generally is done in publications about  this  damage,    about a gap, or
even big hole. If it would be a real gap the crew would    be dead.
Depressurization would have been a matter of seconds not  only  or the
Spektr but also for the whole  complex.  This  depressurization   was in
fact a process which  passed  off  slowly.  The  crew  felt  the   
decrease of the pressure in their ears and they had  still enough  time  
to close one of the hatches to Spektr and -possibly we will hear  about  
this later- do a lot of things before closing that hatch.
 Situation on board of MIR :   A summary about the developments after the
collision  as  derived  from    the enormous amount of radiotraffic will be
published in NEWS.365.

    C.M. van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202