MIRNEWS.100    17 JULY 1991

POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS.
DRAMATIC CHANGE IN PLANS:

Already during long conversations during my visit to Baykonur I got the
impression that soon we would see the influence of the political, economic
and ethnical problems in the S.U. on the manned space program. And
regretfully the first indications are there:
This year they planned to have 3 Soyuz-TM flights: S-TM12 Juno mission,
S-TM13 Austromir and S-TM14 with a Kazakh cosmonaut. Government and
parliament urged the heads of the Russian program to cut drastically
expenses for this year. If not then the program for 1992 would be jeopardized.
The leading had a difficult decision to make: to cancel or Austromir or the
Kazakh flight. They chose a simple alternative: to cancel the flight in November
with the Kazakh (Soyuz-TM14) and to use the flight of Soyuz-TM13 in October
with the Austrian as well as the Kazakh. It was impossible to say no to the
Austrians: there were obligations due to agreements. It was also difficult to
say no to the Kazakhs: long preparations based on promises and the fact that
Baykonur is on Kazakhstan's territory.
Captain of the S-TM13 will be (as previously planned) Colonel Volkov, A. His
crewmates will be the Austrian and the Kazakh. After some days of
experiments on MIR the Kazakh and the Austrian will return together with
Artsebarskiy (now commander MIR). Volkov will stay on MIR until March 1992.
The flight of the present flight-enineer Krikalyov will be prolonged until March 1992.
He already agreed. This all is still a raw planning, possible many data will change, for
instance the launch date and duration of the stay of the guests on board MIR andethe
experimental programs. The experts are working on this all now.

4TH EXTRAVEHICULAR ACTIVITY MIR-CREW:

This is planned for 19 July 1991.

MAK-2:

This is a second miniature satellite still on board MIR. The launch of this
MAK-2 is postponed until the failure of the MAK-1 launch (17 June) thouroughly
has been analysed. Rumours say that this MAK-2 consists an amateur satellite
Iskra-4. A spokesman of TsUP denied this. He seemed to be not sure so perhaps
reason to doubt this denial. (Public Relations is still a very weak point in Soviet society!)
(The abbreviation MAK means Miniatyurnyy Avtonomnyy Kontayner. In several
articles the abbr. M.A.G. is used.)

FREIGHTERS PRORESS-M8 AND PROGRESS-M9:

Data for decay of Pr-M8 and launch of Pr-M9 seem not to be determines yet.
Thes they say depends on the results of the prent series of EVA-s and the
changes in space program.

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