MIRNEWS.435    25 AUGUST 1998

Soyuz-TM27 safely landed:

S-TM27 with on board the relieved ME 25 crew and the politician Baturin
undocked from MIR on 25.08.98 at 0205UTC and after a short autonomous flight
the landing capsule (SA) made a safe landing at a distance of 40 KM from the
city Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan at 05.22.44UTC. The flight and the descent took
place without problems. This mission lasted for Musabayev and Budarin 207
days, for Baturin 12.

Communications during the autonomous flight. For these communications tracking
stations in Russia were in use. I did not monitor traffic via the geostationary
satellite Altair-2. There has been reported that at least one session via an SR
was scheduled and also that between 0435-0531UTC this relay was in use and
during the final phase of the descent this took place parallel with direct
communications via tracking stations. My calculations for traffic via MIR and
Altair-2 gave the window 0416-0510UTC so possibly the window between 0435-
0531UTC was for another SR. I thought about the Luch-1 (1995-054A - 23681)
over 76 degrees East, but in my opinion this SR ceased transmissions long ago.
However its expected operational life was estimated to be 5 years.

Soyuz-TM28:

This transportship is still docked at the aft (Kvant-1) docking
port. In fact this ship also has to serve as a life boat. So if emergency
forces the crew to leave the complex in a hurry they have to board S-TM as
quick as possible. That is why the S-TM has to be redocked from the aft to the
forward (P.Kh.O. - transition section) -X axis port. This operation during
which Padalka and Avdeyev will be on board of the S-TM28 is scheduled for
27.08.1998 between 0544-0608UTC. This will be during MIR's orbit nr. 71520,
0559-0602UTC. Regretfully the elevation for observers in Western Europe will be
very low 0 - 1 degree.

Progress-M39:

This freighter is still flying some hundred kilometers in front
of MIR. The plan is to redock this freighter at the aft (Kvant-1) +X axis port
on 29.08.1998. Pr-M39 has to remain docked at that port until the arrival of
the next freighter. It will last a long time before this freighter will be
launched and it might even be possible that this launch will not take place
due to the lack of funding. The Pr-M39 makes the thermo regulation of the
Kvant-1 module easier and protects the aft dockingport against extreme
temperatures. Meanwhile the space still available in the cargo compartment of
the Pr-M39 can be used for the disposal of garbage and no longer needed
equipment.

MIR-routine:

During the last 10 days in which MIR had 2 crews on board they had
to work regularly on the lifesystems. There were problems with the CO2
scrubber Vozdukh in the Base Block. After some repair attempts they had to use
spare parts from the Vozdukh in the Kvant-1 module. Especially Musabayev and
Budarin had to use every effort for apart from working on the life supporting
systems they had to prepare themselves for the returnflight. They started to
load that what they had to bring with them to earth one day before their
departure. It lasted also long before they started their exercises in the
Chibis, a pressure suit to give the blood circulation the impression of
earthly gravity.

Musabayev told TsUP that there was only little room on board of their ship. So
he asked TsUP to restrict their luggage to the necessary items and to leave all
what might be superfluous on board MIR. He also proposed to put samples of
experiments, cassettes and disks in the container without extra packing. TsUP
partly granted this idea.

During the last days Baturin could be heard discussing his experiments. He
spoke about Intrazvuk, Phantom and Interior.

I did not hear much of Avdeyev. Perhaps he was too busy to get accustomed with
the present state of the station and equipment.

As of today (25.08) Padalka is commander of the MIR station. During the last
days he sometimes assisted Musabayev in this field.

2nd Regime:

This computer scrambled systeem for speech about which I reported
in my MINEWS.434 was rarely in use during the last days.

Chris van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.