MIRNEWS.344    10 FEBRUARY 1997

Launch Soyuz-TM25:

This ship with on board the reliefcrew for the 23d Main Expedition (M.E.)
to MIR and the German astronaut Reinhold Ewald, who will in cooperation
with the Russians execute the MIR-97 program, has been launched from
Baykonur on 10.02.1997 at 14hrs 09mins 30secs UTC. The callsign of the
crew is Sirius (so Sirius-1, 2 and 3). The commander is Tsibliyev, now
making his 2d flight in space and the board-engineer is Lazutkin who did
not fly thusfar.

Progress-M33:

There must always be a free docking port for the new ship. Before the
flight of the Soyuz-TM24 the Russians undocked the Pr-M as soon as they
were sure that the systems of the new ship were functioning normally, so
at abt 1 day after launch. Some orbits after the undocking the freighter
entered the earth's atmosphere and burnt up. To begin with the Pr-M32 the
Russians changed this routine and the Pr-M32 flew autonomously until
18.08.96, redocked to the complex and left MIR and burnt up in the
atmosphere on 20.11.1996. The Progress-M33 separated from MIR's aft
(Kvant-1 +X axis) on 6.02.1997 at 12hrs 13mins 56secs and will make an
autonomous flight until the beginning of March '97.

Soyuz-TM24:

This ship had been docked at the forward dockingport (transitionsection - 
P.Kh.O. -X axis). This port has been chosen for the docking of the S-TM25.
In the future the Russians refrain from the use of the approach
system Kurs in Soyuz-TM and Progress-M ships. This decision has been
taken due to problems about the delivery of that systeem between RKK
Energiya and the factory NPO Kharton in Kharkov, Ukraine. On 7.02.1997 at
16hrs 28mins 01secs the S-TM24 separated from MIR and manned by Korzun,
Kaleri and Linenger made an autonomous flight concluded by the docking of
that ship at the aft (Kvant-1 +X axis) dockingport that day at 16hrs
51mins 27secs. Undoubtedly this has been quite an experience for Jerry
Linenger who came by Atlantis and will return with the shuttle.

Dockings of S-TM ships will be executed manually by the commander and
those of unmanned Pr-M freighters will be done by the crew on board MIR
by the use of the Remote Control system TORU.

ETA (expected time of arrival) of Soyuz-TM25 at MIR:

S-TM25 has to dock to the MIR's forward (P.Kh.O. -X axis) docking port on
12.02.1997 at abt. 1550UTC. This is 3 minutes after the first pass for
both objects over Western Europe. During this pass (1541-1547UTC) we can
expect communications about the approach on 121.750 mc FM-N and the
143.625 mc.

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