MIRNEWS.155    15 DECEMBER 1992

MIR:

Normal routine work to keep the station operational. No significant
problems have been reported. Among the routinework was the regeneration of
a sophisticated filter (BMP), which has to purify the air from harmful
components. MIR's passes these days occur during the nighthours and so the
bulk of information we get thanks to the efforts of OM Peter by monitoring
the 'geo' Altair. He saw how the cosmonauts took care of the newborn Japanese
quails. The eggs had been hedged in the incubator in cooperation between the
IMBP and Czech scientists. The crew spent a lot of time to keep the
temperature and humidity inside the incubator within certain limits. The crew
also had to feed manually the helplessly flittering birds.
Attitude control:
This seems to work flexibly due to the use of the VDU motor in the top of the
Soforamast and a better performance of the girodynes.

PROGRESS-M15:

This freighter is still attached to the station and thusfar it has not been
used for orbitcorrections. However this can happen very soon. Pr-M15 will
separate from the complex within a few days. After an autonomous flight of
almost 1 day Pr-M15 will launch a little sail. In this experiment the sail
will use solarwinds for its propulsion.

PLANS FOR 1993:

The next expedition will start on 24.01.93. On that day the Soyuz-TM16 with
the reliefcrew Manakov and Polishchuk will be launched to MIR. S-TM16 will
dock to MIR on 26.01.93. Solovyov and Avdeyev will return to earth by S-TM15
on 1.02.93.
On 5.02.93 launch of a Progress-M freighter to MIR.
In July 1993 flight of a French spacionaute.
Towards the end of 1993 a Russian physician (doctor), possibly German
Arzamazov, will fly to MIR for a sortie of 18 months. (A long duration flight
of 18 months already had been planned a long ago. Dr. Polyakov, on board MIR
from August 1988 to April 1989, originally had to stay 18 months on board, but
had to return earlier as the station had to fly without a crew for 5 months
due to delays in the launch of Module-D).

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