MIRNEWS.368    7 JULY 1997

Progress-M35:

The start of this cargoship from Baykonur took place on 5.07.97 at
04.11.54UTC. During the pass in orb. 2, 0847-850UTC, the Telemetry
transmissions in the 166 and 165 mc could be heard and during the pass in
the next orbit these transmissions, but also those of the beacon in the
922.755mc could be monitored. On 6.07.1997 during the passes in the
orbits 18, 19 and 20 good signals on all frequencies and with the
opplershift on 922.755 mc 2 times TCA's could be determined: 071751 and
085100UTC.

Progress-M35, approach and docking: Again all went of old: a stable and
reliable execution of this operation by the automatic system Kurs. The
docking took place on 7.07.1997 at 05.59.24UTC. During MIR's orbit 65015
from 0549-0554UTC the approach was going on. At AOS the Pr-M35 was in a
distance of 147 M. Tsibliyev reported very little deviations in the
course and attitude of Pr-M35. There was a stable GSO (gyrostabilized
orientation) and all went so successful that Tsibliyev could load some
date, given him by TsUP, in a computer. Just before LOS the distance was
still 120 M and the approach was continued with a speed of 30 CM\sec.
During the next passes they did not speak about the opening of the
hatches to Pr-M35. The main subject was the good functioning of the
gyrodynes, the good attitude of the complex and the fact that the solar
arrays had been turned to a good angle in relation to the sun. The
accumulators could be fully charged. The crew has to remove temporarily
the spacesuits from the P.Kh.O. (transition section) to get more room for
the transfer of goods from Pr-M35 to the rest of the complex.

The Russians deserve a heartfelt 'Molodtsy' (well done fine fellows). But
please let those responsible for Russian manned spaceflight as soon as
possible make a deal with the Ukrainian factory Khartron for the
restoration of the delivery of the system Kurs. In that way docking-
operations can be executed with a 99.99% reliability!!

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