MIRNEWS.208

For a period of almost a fortnight MIR passed over here during
the nighthours and this meant radiosilence on 143.625 mc.
Now we again can monitor traffic during the eveninghours.
145.550 mc remained active all the time, mainly with Packetradio.
During the first passes this week the MIR crew spoke
with their colleagues Manarov (U2MIR), Volkov (U4MIR) and
Artsebarskiy (U7MIR) in Russia and Tognini in France. These
contacts were in the Russian language and and they used their
operational callsign 'Derbenty'.
The 145.550 mc was also in use on board of the spaceshuttle
Discovery (STS-60) during the flight of the Russian 'astronaut'
Krikolyov, who got permission for the temporary use of
his own callsign U5MIR. The contacts between Discovery and MIR
took place out of our range. On 8.02.94 they communicated via
TDRS-es and the first direct contact on VHF took place on
10.02.94. During the night and early morning of 10.02.94 both
objects regularly passed within our range during overlaps of
their footprints.

Schedule for operations with Progress-M freighters:

Progress-M22: Launch on 16.03.94, docking with MIR on 18.03.-
94. This freighter does not carry a VBK (ballistic return
capsule).
Progress-M21: Separation from MIR on 17.03.94 if Pr-M22 is in
the right orbit and functioning normally. Pr-M21 has no VBK on
board.
Progress-M23: Launch on 18.03.94, docking to MIR at 20.04.94.
This freighter carries a VBK.

Progress-M22: Separation from MIR on 19.05.94 if all is going
well with Progress-M23.
A schedule for the freighters after Progress-23 has been
published, but data might be subject to changes.
The transport ship Soyuz-TM19, had to be launched on 24.06.94,
but this launch has been put forward to 20.06.94, docking to MIR
on 22.06.94. The first crew consisted of Malenchenko, Musabayev
and Strekalov. Strekalov had to return with the relieved
Afanasyev and Usachov after 12 days. Possibly Strekalov will
fly with Soyuz-TM21 together with Dezhurov and an American
kosmonaut on 01.03.95.

American 'cosmonauts': 2 American astronauts had to arrive in
Starcity near Moscow on one of these days to begin with their
training for a flight as 'cosmonaut'. Due to technical reasons
their departure has been postponed for 1 or 2 weeks.

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