MIRNEWS.453    5 FEBRUARY 1999

Znamya 2.5:

A tragic conjunction of circumstances caused the failure of
this experiment. In soviet times successes caused an enormous publicity
explosion. Nowadays the balance goes the other way: extensive information
and publicity before an interesting hazardous operation and when there
is a failure a strong hangover afterwards. For me the days before the
execution of the experiment were hectic. Lots of people, among them even
some who never before were not interested in spaceflight, tackled me to
get information. The media had given them the impression that the
Russians were about to install a real midsummer night's sun. As much as
possible, often even disappointing those enthousiasts, I tried to
explain them that this was just an experiment to try out the methods and
the technologies of a solarreflector for the far future and that it had
not been planned to surprise us with an overwhelming happening

It was clear the the Russians were not happy with the enthousiasm and
attention before and that some of them would prefer a little bit soviet-
like publicity: so exuberant joy when a risky attempt was successful,
but silence after a failure.

What went wrong? Just when Padalka transmitted the command to unfold
the reflector packages, the Progress-M40 got a command from earth to
deploy a Kurs antenna. One slip of the reflector got stuck behind this
antenna and theunfolding process stopped. After the retraction of the
antenna and a motorburn of the Progress-M40 the reflector came free, but
a second attempt to deploy the reflector with the centrifugal forces of
the spinning around its X-axis Pr-M40 failed. After analyses and nightly
deliberations the Russians decided to blow off the experiment and to put
the Pr-M40 on a destruction course.

Progress-M40:

On 4.02.1999 at 09.59.32UTC the freighter separated from
the aft (Kvant-1) docking port of MIR.

On 5.02.1999 at 1016UTC Progress-M40 got the impulse to bring it back
into the atmosphere. At 1110UTC Pr-M40 burnt up over a designated area
in the Pacific East of New-Zealand. Communications: These began with the
reception between 1302 and 13.03.30UTC of the 922.755 mc beacon and
telemetry transmitter of Pr-M40. This was for me the prove that Pr-M40
was flying autonomously.

MIR's radio conversations during the following passes of MIR and Pr-M40
made it clear that the experiment was not proceeding according to plan.
Padalka reported hat he had switched off several systems and obviously
the crew transferred the control of Pr-M40 to TsUP.

Avdeyev continuously reported to TsUP the distances between MIR and 
Pr-M40 with the times. During the pass in orbit 74054, 1439-1440UTC, he
reported that at 13.54.40UTC the distance had been 4090 Meters. At
about 1439UTC the distance was approx. 2 KM. For the measurements
Avdeyev had to soar from port-hole to port-hole. Regularly he reported
that it was difficult to track and to observe the Pr-M40 due to the
sunlight shining in his eyes and now and then MIR's solarpanels hampered
him. Possibly Avdeyev had to report the distances to the man at TsUP who
controlled the Pr-M40. Now and then the UKW-2 (130.165 mc) was in use
for communications. During the pass in orb. 74055, (1606-1615UTC) he
continued to report the distances.

One of my friends, radio-amateur Hans van Dijk (NL number 10204),
picked up images of the Pr-M40 transmitted to earth with SSTV on 145.985 mc.

The failure of the experiment was discussed during radiotraffic. Padalka
did not make a fuss about this, but he was disappointed about the fact
that the crew had not been able to carry out their work. Heexpressed
his satisfaction about the fact that the control of Pr-M40 with the TORU
and the transfer of commands for the experiment worked flawlessly. He
regretted the fact that they had installed all equipment to film and
photograph the events in vain. He joked that they might be able to
try it again in 6 years. About this all and the plans with this
experiment for the next day he had a conversation with Flight control
chief V.A. Solovyov.

During the communication window in orb. 74057/58, 1915-1926UTC, the
crew, certainly unintended, startled the flight controller at TsUP by
switching off the transmitter. This man possibly thought that something
was wrong (in fact a free flying freighter not far from MIR!) and
reacted immediately. Avdeyev told him that all was well on board.

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