MIRNEWS.111    19 OCTOBER 1991

TRANSFER SOYUZ-TM13 FROM FORWARD TO AFT DOCKINGPORT:

This autonomous flight of S-TM13 took place in the early morning of 15 Oct.
1991: from abt. 0052UTC until abt. 0236UTC, so 1 hrs 44 mins. Normally these
operations last appr. 20 mins. So during a whole orbit S-TM13 flew autonomously.
This enabled the crew to carry out an extensive survey of the whole complex and
to make a lot of films and pictures. The S-TM13 had to be transferred to the aft
docking port to make the forward one free for the next freighter, Progress-M10.
This Progress has to dock automatically and TsUP obviously does not trust the
Kurssystem of the aft port for that. Volkov carried out the docking to the aft
port in a semi-automatic mode. This could be derived from radiotraffic on
121.750 mc during the last part of the operation in pass during orb. 32386,
0229-0234UTC.

LAUNCH FREIGHER PROGRESS-M10:

This Progress was launched from Baykonur on 17 Oct. 1991 at 0005UTC. This
Progress is equipped with a return-capsule.

FIRST DOCKING ATTEMPT PR-M10 TO MIR FAILED DUE TO HUMAN MISTAKE:

The docking was expected on 19 Oct. 1991 at abt. 0216UTC. Radiotraffic in the
pass before the docking time (orb. 32448, 0230UTC) revealed that the approach
had been broken off and that the Progress-M10 was moving away. During this pass
and the next 2 ones the crew tried to observe Progress-M10 visually using all
illuminators. They did not discover the freighter. The failure was caused by a
human mistake in TsUP. So analyses are not needed and TsUP already decided to do
the 2d attempt in the night from 20 to 21 October 1991.

CORRECTION DATE DECAY PROGRESS-M9:

This freighter and the returncapsule entered the earth's atmosphere on 30
September 1991 (so not on Oct. 3d). Pr-M9 burnt up and the returncapsule has
been recovered.

CHIEFS OF THE TRAININGCENTRE FOR COSMONAUTS RETIRE:

Not only the Head of that centre, but also his deputy Leonov retire. Shatalov's
successor is Pyotr Klimuk. During the preparations for the launch of S-TM13
Shatalov and Klimuk acted together.

FLEET OF TRACKINGSHIPS SOVJET SPACE-OPERATIONS PROBABLY WILL
BE LIQUIDATED ON 1 JAN. 1992:

The present crew got word that the tracking ships will be taken out of service.
They discussed this with a trackingship and their reactions were such that we
probably will have to face this setback in Sovjet spaceflight.

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