MIRNEWS.202    8 JANUARY 1994

Soyuz-TM18 blasted off for flight to MIR-spacestation:

S-TM18 has been launched from Baykonur on 8.01.94 at 1005UTC.
All went well and at 1014UTC S-TM18 had reached the right
orbit.
For the flight the 1st crew had been selected, so: Captain V.
Afanasyev, who makes his 2d flight, boardengineer (rookie) Yu.
Usachev (pronounciation Usachov ) and the physician Dr. V.
Polaykov, making his 2d flight. He will try to remain 427 days
in space. The call of the crew is Derbent, so resp. Derbent-1,
2 and 3. For radio-amateur traffic resp. U9MIR, R3MIR and
U3MIR.

S-TM18 came in range during orbit 3, 1307UTC. Strong transmis-
sions on the known frequencies (121.750, 165.874 and 922.755
mc). Afanasyev reported that all went well and he added some
pressure values. After abt. 30 mins MIR (orb. 45114) could be
heard here. TsUP told the MIR-crew that all on board S-TM18
was normal. In the pass in the 4th orbit (1436UTC) Afanasyev
reported that the S-TM18 executed 2 orbitcorrections without
significant problems. During the pass in the 5th orbit (1609-
UTC) Afanasyev reported the successful performance of S-TM18
during the 3d orbitcorrection. Afanasyev got the order to
adjust the Globus position indicator and Dr. Polyakov stated
that the condition of the crew was excellent.
On 10.01.94 at 1150UTC S-TM18 has to dock to the MIR-complex.
This will be abt 4 mins. after LOS of the spaceobjects in
MIR's orbit nr. 45144.

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