MIRNEWS.313    14 JULY 1996

Atlantis - STS-79 4th MIR Docking mission:

On 11.07.96 the NASA decided to take a decision about the flight
of Atlantis next week, but already within 24 hours NASA
decided to postpone the launch of Atlantis until the midst of
September. For that flight Atlantis will be equipped by the 
boosters used before the use of the modified boosters which have
been used during the launch of Columbia on 20.06.96.
So Shannon Lucid will have to stay on board of the MIR-station
1.5 month longer. She will be there during the mission of the
French cosmonaut Claudie Andree-Deshays (Cassiopea) and for a
while working under command of Manakov.

Progress-M32:

Still to be launched in the night from 21 to 22.07.96.

Soyuz-TM24:

The ship will have to bring the reliefcrew and the French
cosmonaut to the MIR-station. S-TM24 with a crew of 3
persons will be launched by the use of the rocket Soyuz-U, so
not with the more powerful Soyuz-U2. To enable S-TM24 to have a
rendez-vous with MIR after being launched with a Soyuz-U rocket,
the MIR-station had to be brought in a lower orbit. The engines
of the Progress-M31 corrected MIR's orbit on 2 and 4.07.96.

Radio-amateurtraffic:

Now and then phone from MIR on 145.550 mc.
That what is needed for Packetradio traffic is always in use for
servicetraffic on 143.625 mc. The downlinksignals of the
MIR-station only give the P/R confirmation (R0MIR-CUP). The
transmitter of Safex-2 in the Priroda-module can be heard in a
recorded greeting in Russian and English on 437.925 mc, FM-N.
This frequency is also in use as a primary frequency for
ISM-purposes (Industrial Scientific and Medical), which means
that there might be a lot of interference if that frequency is in
use for ISM by local stations, for instance hospitals.

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