MIRNEWS.209    15 MARCH 1994

Launch Progress-M22 postponed:

This freighter was on schedule to be launched on 16 or 18.03.
Due to very bad weatherconditions (blizzards) the launch has
been put back for a while. Possibly the exact date of launch
will be published on 17.03.94.

Fire on Baykonur:

On 7.03.94 a heavy fire broke out in a MIK
(Assembly and testcomplex) and spread to a Maintenance Unit
Headquarters. There the fire damaged a Telemetry installation.
The fire caused a damage of appr. 1.7 a 1.8 million dollars.
The Russians declared that space-programs will not suffer from
this event.

Progress-M17:

This freighter has been flying autonomously from
11.08.93 for a duration test of its systems. The Russians
planned to leave the Pr-M17 in orbit for a year and a half on
request by the Americans who want to use modified versions of
the Soyuz-TM-ships for ACRV (assured crew return vehicle) for
the spacestation Alpha. A testflight with a Pr-M was useful
for a lot of systems of this freighter are the same as those
of the S-TM. During an orbitmanoeuvre in December 1993 something
went wrong and the Pr-M17 came in a very low perigee
from where it decayed naturally by burning up in the Earth's
atmosphere on 3.03.94 at 0406UTC

Trackingships:

The trackingship Kosmonavt Pavel Belyayev is
floating somewhere in the Atlantic for the support of spaceflight
operations which have nothing to do with the MIR-station.
Nevertheless the ship now and then assists TsUP for
communications with the MIR-station. This took place on 13.03-
.94 at 2004UTC and on 14.03.94 at 2045UTC, so out of our
range. We can expect that within due time we can hear MIRradiotraffic
relayed by the KPB or one of the other ships.

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