MIRNEWS.479    10 MAY 2000

1st Spacewalk (EVA) 28th Main Expedition to MIR:

On 12.05.2000 the crew of the 28th M.E. to MIR will make an EVA. The beginning
of EVA is at 1040UTC (opening of the hatch) and the end at 1605UTC (closing
hatch). The cosmonauts will have to carry out a lot of tasks, i.e. the
‘sealing’ of a little slit in the hull of the base block and the execution of a
panorama inspection of the outside of the complex. The crew will use a device
called ‘germatizator’ and will also dismantle a solar battery from the outside
of the Kvant-1 module.

During the last week main subjects during radiocontacts were the preparations
for the oncoming EVA , such as the airtight checks of the available space
suits, and checks of all equipment needed during the EVA, the airseal of
connections, the status of valves, oxygen and other tanks and the radio
communications system Tranzit.

Almost the whole EVA will be made before MIR comes in range of Western Europe.
Possibly the closure of the hatch will just take place during the first pass in
orbit 81356, 1605-1613UTC. During the following communication sessions the crew
can be monitored during their post-EVA activities.

On 4.05 Zalyotin read out a salute to a recently opened youth forum about
subjects like WW-2 and the victory over fascism. Acitivities during this forum
were sports estafettes by representatives of patriottic military clubs.
Zalyotin sent the best wishes to the participants.

On 7.05, after the conversations about the next EVA the last communication
session was concluded by the TV- or radiobroadcast of the inauguration of
President Putin. His promise to rule the country in an ‘honest and open way’
could be heard loud and clear via the ‘uplink’ channel in the background.

Experiments:

In the past 2 weeks now and then the cosmonauts worked on experiments. They
spoke about original Russian experiments , for which the ‘hardware’ is still on
board of the station. For the time being it is still unclear who will pay for
these experiments and if so, whether this is in the benefit of the shareholders
of MIRcorp. The crew was executing experiments like the Orangery (greenhouse),
Doza (measurements of the radiation levels on board), Dakon (a liquid
convection meter), Optovert, Indikator, etc.

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