MIRNEWS.158 24 JANUARY 1993 SOYUZ-TM16 LAUNCHED FROM BAYKONUR: As planned S-TM16 blasted off from Baykonur on 24.01.93 at 0558UTC. The condition of the prime crew was excellent and so Manakov and Polishchuk are on their way to the MIR-complex. Already on the 3d orbit Soyuz-TM16 could be heard on the well-known frequencies. In phone on 121.750 mc the voices of Manakov (Vulkan-1) and Polishchuk (Vulkan-2) were loud and clear and the crew's spirit seemed to be excellent. Pol. did not show any signs of space-sickness. Meanwhile we already could monitor traffic during the 4th and 5th orbit and during the 4th one they successfully accomplished some orbit corrections. COMMUNICATIONS: During the last weeks TsUP had to communicate with the MIR complex without the support of the trackingstation Yevpatoriya. The money desired by the present owner of that station, the Ukraine, was to much for the Russians. So the Russians provisonally equipped some former measurement stations for the relay of MIR traffic. One of these stations is Shcholkovo, somewhat NE of Moscow and the traffic we could monitor during the last weeks was relayed via that station. Possibly Russia and the Ukraine found an understanding for the use of Yevpatoriya during the operations with S-TM16. Duration and quality of the radiotraffic today pointed to that possibility. ESTIMATED DOCKING DATE/TIME S-TM16 TO MIR: This exceptional manoeuvre: i.e. the docking at the Kristall-module with the new Apas-89 dockingsystems (androgynous) has to be executed on 26.01.93 at abt. 0732UTC. Success of this operation depends on the quality of this dockingsystem and the skill of navigation of Manakov, who has to dock to Kristall (Module-T) manually. Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.