Subject: mirnews.387
From: "C.M. van den Berg" <[email-masked]>
To: "Gianandrea Redaelli" <[email-masked]>, "dirk rensink" <[email-masked]>, "Dave Larsen" <[email-masked]>, "Jonathan McDowell" <[email-masked]>, "Friends Partners Space" <[email-masked]>, "Mats Rieschel" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 12:29:37 +0100

MIRNEWS.387                                   6 OCTOBER 1997

Communications MIR during mission  STS86:

The communications to and from the MIR during the link-up period of
Atlantis and MIR demonstrated what we can expect when of the International
Spacestation the Russian and American segments will be operational. For
matters regarding the whole complex the American side will take care for
the communications and traffic between the Russian segment and TsUP-M will
only concern Russian matters (experiments, maintenance, advices, etc.) The
lion's share of the communications went via Atlantis.  During windows in
which the MIR was able to communicate via Russian tracking facilities they
only handled Russian matters. The communications between MIR and Atlantis
took place  via an intercom system. Sometimes Atlantis also took care of
the Packet Radio traffic for MIR.  During the link-up  MIR seldom used the
Altair-2 facility. Images of the approach of Atlantis and the EVA of
Parazynski and Titov made from inside MIR were directly transmitted to
earth via Russian tracking stations on UHF frequencies.  Sometimes the
comments on those images went via the VHF channel.  On 28.09 Altair-2 was
in use for the relay of video-recordings. 

Progress-M36: This freighter blasted off from Baykonur on 5.10.1997 at
15.08.57UTC. All went well. The Pr-M36 will deliver the normal cargo:
water, food, fuel, experiments and a spare computer.  Among the repair
material is a special glue ('germetik') to be used during the repair of the
Spektr. 

Progress-M36 is expected to dock at MIR's aft docking port (Kvant-1 +X
axis) on 7.10 at 1642UTC. 

Transmissions Pr-M36:   On 5.10 during the 3d orbit (1944-1946UTC)
Telemetry was heard in the 165 and 166 mc bands. During the 4th orbit 
(2114-2119UTC) the signals in the 165 and 166 mc were very strong.  The
transmitter on 922.755mc was active during that pass. TCA was at
21.15.54UTC

Progress-M35: This old freighter is no longer needed and will separate from
MIR on 6.10 at 1124UTC for a short autonomous flight  and decay in the
atmosphere over a designated area in the Pacific East of New Zealand at
1424UTC. 

Mini-sputnik:  A small copy of Sputnik-1 will also be delivered by Pr-M36. 
During the next EVA of Solovyov and Vinogradov on 16.10.1997 this Sputnik
will be 'launched' manually.  This satellite will send 'bleeps' on a
frequency in the 2 Meter amateur band to recall the launch of the first
artificial earth satellite on 4.10.1957. 

Chris  Vandenberg, NL-9165/A-UK3202