MIRNEWS.250    12 APRIL 1995

Progress-M27:

This freighter started from Baykonur on 9.04.95 at 1933UTC.
After a 2-days flight during which no problems emerged Pr-M27
docked to the forward (P.Kh.O. - transition section) of the
MIR complex on 11.04.1995 at 2100UTC (21 hrs 00 mins 42 se
conds), so on 12.04.1995 at 0100 Moscow Summer Time. Approach
and docking took place in the automatic mode by the system
Kurs. Dezhurov was ready to take over manually by the remote
control system TORU, but this was not necessary. Pr-M27 docked
during MIR's orbit 52262. During the final approach and doc
king traffic was relayed by Altair. There were no TV-images.
Dezhurov reported details of the approach and the soft docking
(kasanye).
During the next pass in orb. 52263, at 2227UTC Strekalov
reported that they had opened the hatch to Pr-M27 2 minutes
earlier and that everything was in good order. Pr-M27 delive
red to the complex the normal cargo (water, food, fuel, post,
underwear, scientific material, etc.), repairmaterials for the
systems to maintain a good atmosphere and the watergeneration
and the German microsatellite GFZ-1.

GFZ-1:

So this little satellite is now on board of the MIR-
complex waiting for its 'second' launch. This has to be done
by the cosmonauts in the night from 19 to 20.04.1995. This
spherical object with a mass of 20 KG and a diameter of 21 CM
will separate from MIR with a speed of 1.2 M/sec. During this
operation the German trackingstation Oberpfaffenhofen will
play an important role. (For details about GFZ-1 see MIR-
NEWS.249)

During the pass in which Strekalov reported the opening of the
hatch, TsUP told him that the first EVA will take place on
11.05.1995. The date for the launch of Spektr (thusfar on
schedule for 20.05.1995) might be changed. After the launch of
the Spektr, so during one of its 7-days autonomous flight,
Progress-M27 will be separated from MIR.

Possible launchdate of Atlantis for the flight in which she 
has to dock to MIR: 22.06.1995. If so the flight of the Disco
very might be put forward to 6.06.1995. This all is not sure
at this moment.

C.M. van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.