MIRNEWS.251    20 APRIL 1995

GFZ-1 launched by MIR-crew:

On 19.04.1995 at 1912UTC this spherical microsat (21 CM diame
ter, mass 20 KG) has been pushed into space from an airlock of
MIR's baseblock. GFZ-1 moved off with a speed of 1.2 M/sec.
The traffic in which the reports of data and images of the
autonomous GFZ-1 could be monitored via Altair.
The same operation had taken place some days before: On
17.04.1995 at 08Hrs 19Mins 50Secs the crew launched a contain
ter with garbage to be sure that the system would work well.
This object is now in space under catalog number 23557. 
GFZ-1 has been built by the German firm Kayser-Threde. The
coordination of the observations of GFZ-1 will be done by the
Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam. Abt 25 observatories all over
the world will execute measurements by laserreflections.
Stations are among others: London, Grasse (France), Potsdam,
Easterisland, Graz (Austria) and even one in Kirgizie. The
stations can 'catch' GFZ-1 with a beamwidth of 200 Meters.
During the first pass London and Graz did not get reflections,
but during the 2d pass Graz caught GFZ-1 and was able to pick
the first geodetic and ballistic measurements. During the
launch the MIR-crew acted independently.

Planning for the near future:

Some crucial operations had to be put back by the Russians
(launch module Spektr, EVA-s, a.s.o.) and this forced the
Americans to put back the launch of the Atlantis to the second
half of June. Therefore the flight of Discovery has been put
forward and will now begin at abt 8.06.1995.

Cargo Progress-M27:

An antenna for radio-amateurpurposes,
delivered by Pr-M27, has been damaged due an improper packing.
The crew showed this antenna via Altair and discussed this
problem with the well known radio-amateur Sergey Samburov.

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