MIRNEWS.445    2 NOVEMBER 1998

Progress-M39:

On 29.11.1998 at 0327UTC the deorbit burn to dump this old freighter in the
atmosphere was given. This resulted in the burning up over a designated area
of the Pacific East of New Zealand at 04.14.52UTC.

Radio-amateur equipment:

Meanwhile confirmation could be obtained that the mini-sputnik (Spoutnik-41)
and the equipment for the SSTV (slow scan TV) system was delivered at the MIR-
station by Progress-M40. My 'doubts' about this cargo in MIRNEWS.444 were
caused by the fact that these items had not been written in the copy of the
cargo-list of my spokeswoman at TsUP. There was only a note about the
Sputnik in the Board Documentation of Pr-M40. So I asked deputy head of RKK
Energiya, S.K. Gromov, and he assured me that both items had been delivered at
MIR. He also told me that the mini-Sputnik will be jettisoned into open space
during the spacewalk (EVA) in the night from 10 to 11.11.1998.

Possibly the SSTV system will be become operational in the course of December 1998.
Probably for this purpose the frequency 437.975 FM will be used in the Simplex mode.

BKV-3:

This airconditioner regularly has to be switched off some minutes or
even within a minute after switching on. The former crew has also been
continuously annoyed by this kind of failure. The cause of the failure has
something to do with the pressure in the system. Sometimes the alarm can be
heard via the downlink when the cosmonauts have switched on the BKV-3 on TsUP's
request.

Spacewalk (EVA):

This EVA will be made in the night from 10 to 11.11.1998.
(From 10.11 at about 2200UTC until 11.11.1998 at about 0300UTC.

Activities during EVA:

The installation on the outer surface of the complex
of a French instrument to catch micro meteorites, the dismantling and retrieval
of Russian experiments from the outside and the manual launch of the mini-
Sputnik (Spoutnik-41) into open space. The persons involved in this experiment
are still arguing about the denomination of the satellite: the choise is
between Spoutnik-41, RS-17-2 or RS-18.

Chris van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.