MIRNEWS.196    30 OCTOBER 1993

5th Spacewalk (EVA) MIR-crew on 29.10.93:

The crew opened the hatch at 1338UTC and closed this behind
them at 1750UTC, so the duration of this EVA was 4 hrs and
12 mins. They fully accomplished their tasks: the experiment
Panorama, during which Sererbrov made video-images of the
outersurface of the station, they removed samples of materials
which had been exposed to open space and placed new samples
and on instructions from experts on earth they carried out
an inspection of objects on the outside, for instance the
solarpanels. They also carried out prophylactic work.
Most of the radio-communications was relayed by the satellite
Altair. During the first 2 passes for our position the EVA
was still going on and the radio-traffic could be heard on
VHF as well as on Altair. During the pass in orbit 44010,
1742-1752UTC, the cosmonauts returned to the airlock and they
told TsUP that they were ready to close the hatch on TsUP's
command. So they did at 1750UTC and they immediately started
with the equalisation of the pressures between the airlock
(S.Sh.O.) and the Instrument-Scientific compartment (P.N.O.).
OM Peter monitored phone as well as TV-images and in coordi-
nation with him I was able to determine that all went well
during this EVA.
During the first communication session via Altair after the
EVA the cosmonauts transmitted images made during the EVA to
TsUP. So OM Peter could see how the crew during their EVA jet-
tisoned an old (probably no longer usable) EVA- or spacesuit.
They succeeded in sending away this dummy in such a shape that
it looked like someone who saluted like a soldier.
After analyses of the monitored radio-traffic I hope to tell
something about the crew's assessment of the damage, which
had been caused by micro-meteorites around 12.08.93.

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