MIRNEWS.162    15 February 1993

PROGRESS-M15:

After the undocking of this freighter and the relatively short during Znamya
experiment (sunlight reflection) the Russians planned to keep Pr-M15 in
space for 72 hours. Pr-M15 after the 4th orbit jettisoned the reflecting screen.
Instead of 72 hours Pr-15 remained in orbit 1 day longer and decayed over
the Pacific on 7.02.93 at 2244UTC (time under reserve; still to be confirmed).

PROGRESS-M16:

The launch of this freighter was scheduled for 15.02.93 (if UTC still on
14.02.93 at abt. 2200UTC). This launch has been put back until 18.02.93 at
1945UTC. Further delay until 20.02.93 possible. Reason thusfar unknown.

MIR:

The new crew has also a lot of repair work and replacements of equipment to do.
Problems mainly with the life-support systems (waterregeneration, humidity
control -especially in Module-D-, etc.) In the night from 14 on 15.02.93 during orb.
40008 at 0123UTC the crew had to cope with such a problem. The movements
control motor (VDU) still inactive. For the attitude control a part of the gyrodynes
and verniers have to be used. The crew gives an impression of high stability in
spite of technical problems they are in a good mood.

RADIO-AMATEURISM:

Not much activities in this field within our range. The station mainly passes during
the nighthours. They do a lot in that field over Australia and America.
In the beginning Manakov still used the call U9MIR. On P/R they now use the
'non-soviet' call: R2MIR. R2MIR is probably the call of Polishchuk so Manakov
might use R1MIR.

Corrections for readers of my report in Oscar News-99:
1. page 34, 4th sentence: read 'feb' instead of 'may'.
2. page 34, 6th sentence: read 'APAS' instead of 'ASAP'.

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