MIRNEWS.457 28 FEBRUARY 1999 Soyuz-TM28: On 28.02.1999 at 02.14.13UTC the descent apparatus (SA) of this transportship made a safe landing in position 50 degr. 46 min. 40 sec. North, 67 degr. 23 min. 26 sec. East so approx. in a distance of 100 Kilometers South of the city Kijma in Kazakhstan. Inside that SA were the commander of the 26th Main Expedition to MIR, Padalka, and the Slovak cosmonaut-researcher Ivan Bella. They felt well after the landing: Padalka had a pulse rate of 80, Bella of 90 beats per minute. Stefanik: During his arrival on board MIR and his departure Ivan Bella executed the scientific program Stefanik. The program is named after Milan Ratislav Stefanik, a famous Slovak politician, astronomer, fighter pilot and general of the French army in WW-1, first Czechoslovak Secretary of Defense in the then just indepent state. His carreer was pretty short for he died in a plane crash near Bratislava on 4.05.1919. Like Stefaniks' carreer the stay of Bella on board MIR was also too short to perform all his tasks. However radiotraffic clearly revealed that Bella very quickly had adapted himself to the conditions of weightlessness and that he did not suffer any longer from the headache reported by him during his flight with S- TM28. He faultlessly communicated in Russian and executed his tasks with enthousiasm. With Tamara Guryeva of IMBP in Moscow he coordinated his work with the eggs of the Japanese Quail. (Prepelica in Slovak; Perepel in Russian). Bella had transported to MIR a number of eggs of that bird in the Incubator-T. The chickens in these eggs were scheduled to come out of the shell during the period of Bella's stay on board MIR. After arrival Bella had to transfer the eggs from the Incubator-T to the incubators on board MIR. While doing this he crushed 4 of them, but the other eggs safely were installed in the incubators and the chickens soon came out of their shells. There was a static incubator and one in a slow spinning centrifuge (to create more or less some gravity). Those who saw the light in the first incubator immediately enjoyed life and swallowed food and water. The poor birds who had to grow up in the centrifuge suffered from severe stress due to the darkness and low temperatures. The care for the birds has been taken over by the new crew. The experiment Prepelica is an enhanced continuation of the experiment of that kind executed by Anatoliy Solovyov during his flight in the beginning of this decade. Japanese quails can produce eggs in a high frequency and the birds as will as the eggs are very rich of protein and so very suitable in the food of crews during long duration flights, for instance to Mars and beyond. It was unclear whether a part of the newborn quails would return by S-TM28. Bella also executed the other experiments of the Stefanik program. Endotest indeed had something to do with hormone production and the physiology of endocrine glants. For this experiment he had to take bloodsamples. He also worked on the Dosimetry experiment, which studies the interactions of heavy ions in primary cosmic rays with different materials , i.e. biological tissues, integrated circuits etc. Other experimens were Senso-assymetry, a study of motion sickness, Trenik (training) to determine the effects on the cardio-vascular system during weightlessness of long and intensive physical training on earth before the flight. On 24.02.1999 Bella stayed a long time inside the Soyuz-TM28. With Padalka he had to check all systems, also the performance of the communications equipment to be sure that the ship was reliable for the oncoming returnflight. Haignere: This French spationaute feels himself at home and he already started to execute experiments in the framework of the Perseus program. Partly this program is a continuation of items of former Russian-French programs Aragatz, Antares and Altair. He coordinates his activities in this field with French and Russian scientists and specialists in France as well in Russia. During one of his conversations with a Frenchman in Russia he stated that he certainly will use the radio-amateur facilities on board MIR, for instance those installed in the Module Priroda. He also said that there were already arrangements with radio-amateurs in the U.S.A. for hamwork during passes over there. Preparations for the returnflight: This was a heavy burden for Padalka, but it seemed not to have bothered him. He had to train in the Chibis suit for the adaptation of his cardiovascular system a little bit for the gravity conditions on earth. Avdeyev, his faithful servant, assisted him during these activities. Padalka also worked on the stowing into S-TM28 of cargo to be delivered to earth. All available room had to be used as effeciently as possible. One of the seats in the S-TM28 can be used to stow experiments, samples (blood, saliva, etc), and even plants. Communications: During the last week in which there was a double crew on board the radiotraffic was very intensive, often on 2 different frequencies, 143.625 and 130.165 mc. at the same time. Radioconversations revealed that there has been a lot of manoeuvring with the attitude of the MIR-complex. Contrary to previous missions with a double crew on board the life support systems of MIR behaved well. 27th Main Expediton to MIR: This crew consists of Viktor Mikhaylovich Afanasyev, Commander, Sergey Vasilyevich Avdeyev, 1st Board Engineer, and the Cosmonaut-Researcher and 2nd Board Engineer, Jean-Pierre Haignere. They use the call Derbent, so respectively Derbent -1, 2 and 3. Important operations for the near future: These will be the launch of the freighter Progress-M41 and the first spacewalk (EVA). The data for these events have not yet been determined. Chris van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.