MIRNEWS.329    19 SEPTEMBER 1996

Atlantis docked at MIR:

'Readdy was ready' and he controlled the free drift with
a speed of appr. 2.5 cm/sec of Atlantis to MIR during the
final phase of the approach. The result was a perfect
soft docking on 19.09.96 at 0313UTC. The original
operationschedule was almost executed on the minute,
except for the time of the 'touch', which had been put
forward by 4 minutes. For friends in Western Europa who
use to monitor radiotransmissions during such operations
this was a blessing for it meant that the docking could
take place within the window for both objects on MIR's
orbit nr. 60468, 0307-0315UTC. So at 031330UTC they
could hear Readdy reporting in Russian: 'KASANIYE'
(touch). For this report he used the 130.165 mc FM and
immediately after his report commander Korzun in MIR
reported on 143.625 mc that he had a positive indication
about the docking. Monitoring people always hope that
they can pick up that important word 'kasaniye' during
dockings of Soyuz- and Progress-ships, but mostly the
moment of that touch takes place just a few minutes after
LOS of their position, in the past this occurred a few
times during Soyuz-TM dockings. Of course it is always
possible to log the traffic during such dockings in the
final phase of the approach. This time there was not
much radiotraffic before the 'touch' for Readdy had to do
his job with concentration and everybody was watching the
operation silently. TV-images transmitted by TV-stations
revealed that there were no direct images from camera's
on board MIR. So possibly the geostationary Luches:
Altair-1 and 2 were not in use. During the first 3
docking missions these images could be seen simul-
tanuously with the images from Atlantis, relayed by
TDRS-s. Certainly we will get images made from inside
MIR during the docking operation, but these were recorded
and transmitted to earth later. During the next pass of
the enormous space-complex (in orb. MIR nr. 60469, 0441-
0453UTC) the MIR-crew already had accomplished the air-
seal checks and opened 2 hatches of the SO (docking
compartment). They also had removed things which had
been necessary during the docking and now had to be
stowed away. Just before LOS for our position Korzun
tried to communicate via 130.165 mc with Atlantis to get
information about the proceedings there. Opening of the
hatches from Atlantis to MIR took place at 0539UTC, so
not in our VHF-range. Via TV-stations receiving relays
via a TDRS we could see nice images of the meeting of
both crews and the first gathering on board MIR.

SAREX STS-79:

During this mission there might be radio-
amateuractivities by the astronauts-radio-amateurs Jay
Apt (N5QWL), Carl Walz (KC5TIE) and John Blaha (KC5TZQ).
Sarex VHF downlink is 145.840 mc FM with uplink
frequencies: 144.450 and 144.470 mc FM. Please do not
use 145.840 mc FM for 'uplink' or -during Atlantis
passes -local bragging.

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