MIRNEWS.192    12 OCTOBER 1993

PROGRESS-M20:

The launch of this freighter took place on 11.10.93 at 2133UTC
(for the Russians, using 'decree-time', already 12.10.93 0033
hrs). Pr-M20 reached the right initial orbit and the first
corrections have been executed successfully. Pr-M20's trans-
missions in the 166, 165 and 922 bands could be monitored in
the pass in the 2d orbit on 12.10.93 between 0035 and 0037UTC.
Pr-M20 has to deliver to the MIR-station spare parts, food,
water, fuel and post. It contains also a package of experi-
ments in the framework of Biokrist. These are protein-kristal-
lisation experiments from several countries. One experiment is
of Dr. Grip of the Faculty for Eye Surgery, University of
Nijmegen (the Netherlands).
A Biokrist container, including the same Dutch experiment, has
been on board of the MIR-complex in the first 3 months of
1992. During the transport, after the skilful delivery on
earth by the cosmonauts Volkov and Krikalyov, something went
wrong due to extreme low temperatures and the results suffered
damages.
The present experiment will return to earth by the crew of
this expedition in december 1993.
In 2 days Progress-M20 will fly to MIR and if all goes well
the freighter will dock to MIR on 13.10.93 at abt. 2316UTC (so
for the Russians already on 14.10.93, 0216 Msc decree-time).

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