MIRNEWS.397    5 DECEMBER 1997

Spacewalks (EVA's):

On 3.12 RKK Energiya published changes of the EVA plan for December 1997. This
publication suggested that EVA's had been planned for 6, 12 and 30.12.97. In
the sequence of these EVA's the most difficult one was scheduled for 6.12.97,
i.e. the installation of rails and anchors at the outersurface of the module
Spektr. However radiotraffic during the last days did not give any indication
of preparations or exercises for the first EVA: on the contrary the Russians
used all the available time for so called prescribed activities: maintenance,
repairs (for instance of a cooling circuit) and monitoring the airpressure
regulation. David Wolf indefatigably continued his experiments. Meanwhile the
'desinformation' of RKK Energiya has been silently erased.

Future plans:

The departure of Progress-M36 will take place on 17.12.97. After undocking Pr-M36
will release the mini-satellite Inspektor for a test in the framework of a
Russian/German project. Inspektor will make video- and photo's of Progress-M36
as well as of the MIR-space station.

The next EVA's are still scheduled for 5 and 9.01.1998.

Radio-amateurism:

Vinogradov prepared the radio-amateur system in the module Priroda for the test
which had been proposed by the Amsat organisation. The purpose of this test was
to see whether it would be possible to use a split band configuration (uplink
437.850 mc, downlink 145.800 mc) of the PMS station on 145.985 mc. During many
conversations via the geostationary Altair-2 Vinogradov coordinated his
activities with the MIR radio-amateur manager, Sergey Samburov (RV3DR).

It was clear that not all went as had been planned. Vinogradov also had
problems with cable connections and he had to look for adapters to connect
different cables. He told that he also tried to use 145.800 and 145.550 mc, but
this was not a success due to dense traffic on these frequencies. (Unclear
whether he used these frequencies split -with 437.850 m down- or simplex on 2
m. only). Stations on earth received him loud and clear but his reception was
very poor.

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