Subject: mirnews.375
From: "C.M. van den Berg" <[email-masked]>
To: "dirk rensink" <[email-masked]>, "Dave Larsen" <[email-masked]>, "Jonathan McDowell" <[email-masked]>, "JL Green" <[email-masked]>, "Friends Partners Space" <[email-masked]>, "Mat Riescher" <[email-masked]>, "Igor Lissov" <[email-masked]>, "Frans Plaizier" <[email-masked]>, "Yvo Krijgsman" <[email-masked]>, "Henk Smid werk" <[email-masked]>, "Andre Kuipers" <[email-masked]>, "Hans Janssen" <[email-masked]>, "Redactie Muurkrant" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 13:52:08 +0200

MIRNEWS.375                                          6 AUGUST 1997

Soyuz-TM26: The perfect launch took place on 5.08.1997 at 15.35.59UTC. On
board the crew for the 24th Main Exp. to MIR,  Anatoliy Solovyov and Pavel
Vinogradov . Call sign: Rodniki, so Rodnik-1 and Rodnik-2. During the first
pass in orb. 2 (1838-1841UTC) very weak signals on beacon- and telephony
frequencies.  During the pass in orb. 3 (2007-2011UTC) very good reception
on all frequencies.  Solovyov could be heard in a conversation with TsUP.
He reported a technical anomaly in the BO (lifecompartment): a hose (or:
tube) was not connected to an air purification unit, which caused an
increased amount of CO2 in the mini-atmosphere on board. He told TsUP that
he had connected that hose immediately and that the system was functioning
normally.  Again good signals in the window in orb. 4 (2138-2147UTC) during
which Solovyev repeated his report about that hose. 

MIR:  During the passes in the evening of 4.08.1997 the crew reported that
they were working on the malfunctioning Elektron oxygen generator in
Kvant-1.  (The Elektron in Kvant-2 is not operational due to power
shortages). During a long communication session  via Altair-2 in the
morning of 5.08.1997 the crew was still coordinating the repair work on the
Elektron. After the departure of Progress-M35 for a 10 day lasting
autonomous flight lithium perchlorate cartridges have to be used for the
production  of oxygen.  This will be not very convenient during the period
in which 5 men are on board (7-14.08.97).

An eventual delay of the S-TM26 launch due to the problems with the
Elektrons has not been taken into consideration. 

In MIRNEWS.374 I gave an estimated time for the docking of S-TM26  on
7.08.97 as 1723UTC.  In that report I remarked that this time considerably
deviated from the normal routine: dockings a few minutes after LOS of the
first pass of both objects for our position. Inquiries in the Ballistic 
Section of the Keldysh institute of the R.A.N. learned that  there had been
a misprint in a Russian message about the estimated docking time.
The estimated dockingtime is: 07.08.97 at 1703UTC, so in accordance with
the  normal routine.

The supply ship Progress-M35 has to free the docking port (+X-axis) for the
arrival of the S-TM26 and will do this on 6.08.97 at 1144UTC. The
autonomous flight of Pr-M35 will last until 16.08.97.  On that day Pr-M35
will dock (in the automatic regime with the system Kurs) at the same
docking port after the redocking of S-TM26 to the forward (-X-axis) the day
before. 	 

Chris Vandenberg, NL-9165/A-UK3202