Subject: mirnews.459
From: "C.M. vd Berg" <[email-masked]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 03:43:47 -0400 (EDT)

MIRNEWS.459                                                    13 APRIL 1999

Progress-M41:  This freighter linked up with the MIR-complex on 4.04.1999 at
12.46.49UTC.  The docking was executed in the automatic mode by the system
Kurs.  (More or less a tragedy for me was the fact that when this operation
was going on I drove along the Yaroslavskoye Shosse in Korolyov in a short
distance from the building of TsUP! Theoretically I could have been in time
in TsUP, if I had been allowed to enter that building, but my arrival by KLM
on Sheremetevo was delayed due to a nearly fatal landing attempt. Heavy
turbulence and sidewind within a few meters from touchdown forced our
captain to execute an emergency restart. So Progress-M41 successfully
arrived  at the first attempt, I did this only on the 2nd ) Two days later I
did manage to visit TsUP and to monitor 1 one of the communication sessions
with MIR in which one of the subjects was the mini Sputnik which will be
launched during the first EVA.

1st Spacewalk (EVA) crew 27th Main Expedition MIR:

This EVA to be executed  by commander Afanasyev and  CNES cosmonaut Haignere
will start on 16.04.1999 at 0430UTC, when they open the outer hatch of the
airlock (Sh.S.O.) of Module-D.  The planned duration of the EVA is 5 hours
and 12 minutes.  The cosmonauts will install experiments at the outer
surface of the complex and retrieve experiments which had been been
installed in the past from there.

The whole  day of 13.04.1999 the crew was working on the spacesuits. They
checked the air-tightness and all technical systems. The air-tightness gave
no problems, but from the spacesuit of Afanasyev the medical data did not
reach the telemetry. TsUP  presumed that there was something wrong with the
medical dataprocessing unit in Afanasyev's suit.  Afanasyev suggested not to
bother about this problem, but the medical group was not willing to give
permission for the EVA  if the problem would not be solved.  If such a
failure might arise during the EVA they could bear this for it would be
difficult to stop the EVA, but they needed medical data at the beginning. So
the management ordered Afanasyev to use spacesuit number 5 for the EVA.
This means that a part of the checks will have to be repeated and that there
is little time to train for the EVA.

Communications: On 12.04.1999 Viktor D. Blagov congratulated the crew with
the Cosmonauts Day. He expressed the wish that Russian spaceflight would be
able to survive and that he hoped the same with the MIR space station.  He
told the crew that the Service Module for the I.S.S. would be transported to
Baykonur in May    to enable the launch in  late October \ begin November
this year.  Towards the end of the communication session he informed them
about a message he just got from Krasnoyarsk in which was reported that the
only  geostationary satellite available  for MIR-communications,  the
Luch-1/Gelios standing over 77 degrees East ,  was unserviceable due to a
technical failure.   Until the beginning of next year  TsUP and MIR do not
have such an in fact necessary facility.    In the beginning of 2000 TsUP
again  hopes to  be able to make use  of  a new Luch or Altair, which has to
be placed over 16 degrees West.

During a meeting in the Russian Space agency (RKA) in which I took part I
asked one of the deputies of Mr. Koptev whether there were plans for such a
satellite. He confirmed my question.  This geostationary communications
satellite will be launched in November or December this year.

Private situation: I did not cancel my tour to Moscow because of the fact
that  the doctors and other experts advised me  to go and thus to gain
strength and relax after the hectic months. And indeed they were right,   I
now feel better than before my trip.

Regretfully the status of my wife who is still in hospital has not changed
and predicting the near future is almost impossible.

Chris van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.