MIRNEWS.459 13 APRIL 1999 Progress-M41: This freighter linked up with the MIR-complex on 4.04.1999 at 12.46.49UTC. The docking was executed in the automatic mode by the system Kurs. (More or less a tragedy for me was the fact that when this operation was going on I drove along the Yaroslavskoye Shosse in Korolyov in a short distance from the building of TsUP! Theoretically I could have been in time in TsUP, if I had been allowed to enter that building, but my arrival by KLM on Sheremetevo was delayed due to a nearly fatal landing attempt. Heavy turbulence and sidewind within a few meters from touchdown forced our captain to execute an emergency restart. So Progress-M41 successfully arrived at the first attempt, I did this only on the 2nd ) Two days later I did manage to visit TsUP and to monitor 1 one of the communication sessions with MIR in which one of the subjects was the mini Sputnik which will be launched during the first EVA. 1st Spacewalk (EVA) crew 27th Main Expedition MIR: This EVA to be executed by commander Afanasyev and CNES cosmonaut Haignere will start on 16.04.1999 at 0430UTC, when they open the outer hatch of the airlock (Sh.S.O.) of Module-D. The planned duration of the EVA is 5 hours and 12 minutes. The cosmonauts will install experiments at the outer surface of the complex and retrieve experiments which had been been installed in the past from there. The whole day of 13.04.1999 the crew was working on the spacesuits. They checked the air-tightness and all technical systems. The air-tightness gave no problems, but from the spacesuit of Afanasyev the medical data did not reach the telemetry. TsUP presumed that there was something wrong with the medical dataprocessing unit in Afanasyev's suit. Afanasyev suggested not to bother about this problem, but the medical group was not willing to give permission for the EVA if the problem would not be solved. If such a failure might arise during the EVA they could bear this for it would be difficult to stop the EVA, but they needed medical data at the beginning. So the management ordered Afanasyev to use spacesuit number 5 for the EVA. This means that a part of the checks will have to be repeated and that there is little time to train for the EVA. Communications: On 12.04.1999 Viktor D. Blagov congratulated the crew with the Cosmonauts Day. He expressed the wish that Russian spaceflight would be able to survive and that he hoped the same with the MIR space station. He told the crew that the Service Module for the I.S.S. would be transported to Baykonur in May to enable the launch in late October \ begin November this year. Towards the end of the communication session he informed them about a message he just got from Krasnoyarsk in which was reported that the only geostationary satellite available for MIR-communications, the Luch-1/Gelios standing over 77 degrees East, was unserviceable due to a technical failure. Until the beginning of next year TsUP and MIR do not have such an in fact necessary facility. In the beginning of 2000 TsUP again hopes to be able to make use of a new Luch or Altair, which has to be placed over 16 degrees West. During a meeting in the Russian Space agency (RKA) in which I took part I asked one of the deputies of Mr. Koptev whether there were plans for such a satellite. He confirmed my question. This geostationary communications satellite will be launched in November or December this year. Private situation: I did not cancel my tour to Moscow because of the fact that the doctors and other experts advised me to go and thus to gain strength and relax after the hectic months. And indeed they were right, I now feel better than before my trip. Regretfully the status of my wife who is still in hospital has not changed and predicting the near future is almost impossible. Chris van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.