From the packet radio net ========================= _____________________________________________________________________________ SUNDAY OCTOBER 12, 1997 _____________________________________________________________________________ c r0mir-1 cmd:*** CONNECTED to R0MIR-1 [09/28/97 06:05:52] Logged on to R0MIR's Personal Message System CMD(B/H/J/K/KM/L/M/R/S/SR/V/?)> l Msg # Stat Date Time To From @ BBS Subject 300 P 09/28/97 15:56 KB5UAC WA6LIE Been a pleasure! 299 P 09/28/97 14:59 ZS5GMT R0MIR welcome 298 PR 09/28/97 14:50 ALL R0MIR Mir Status 297 PR 09/28/97 14:18 R0MIR WB9AWX Welcome aboard! 287 P 09/27/97 16:02 ZL3AHW R0MIR qso 286 P 09/27/97 16:01 VK5ZAI R0MIR pleasure 284 PR 09/27/97 07:16 ALL N6CO 2 Line MIR Keps 9/26 244 P 09/23/97 13:27 VK2JYE R0MIR qso 12071 Bytes free Next message Number 301 CMD(B/H/J/K/KM/L/M/R/S/SR/V/?)> r 298 Stat : PR Posted : 09/28/97 14:50 To : ALL From : R0MIR @ BBS : BID : Subject: Mir Status Well STS-86 made its docking smoothly yesterday, and I must honestly say I am looking forward to seeing my wife Rhonda, daughter Jenna, and 3 yr old son Ian, who my shuttle crew say has grown twice his size, since I last saw him. I will be sad leave my good russian friends Anatoli and Pavel here on Mir, but it is now time for me to say goodbye to them, and to all the Hams in the world who have spent the time to talk to us. Thank you. I will be showing David Wolf, my replacement, who to operate the PMS here, and I hope you will enjoy many contacts with him. For now, the 70cm experiment is over, and MIREX will later post its findings. Best wishes Michael Foale KB5UAC, NASA 5. CMD(B/H/J/K/KM/L/M/R/S/SR/V/?)> j WA6LIE-3 09/28/97 15:57 N6CO 09/28/97 15:57 N7UQA 09/28/97 15:56 W6BME 09/28/97 15:56 ZS5GMT 09/28/97 15:06 W5RRR 09/28/97 14:30 WB5PUM 09/28/97 14:24 WB2LMA 09/28/97 14:22 NO0C 09/28/97 14:20 WB9AWX 09/28/97 14:19 KC5VDJ 09/28/97 12:52 WA5KBH 09/28/97 12:49 WF1F 09/28/97 11:18 VE6PG 09/28/97 09:38 ZL3UCP 09/28/97 09:04 ZL2VAL 09/28/97 09:03 EB5DGP 09/28/97 08:16 FA1ASA 09/28/97 08:15 CMD(B/H/J/K/KM/L/M/R/S/SR/V/?)> b - Logged off *** DISCONNECTED [09/28/97 06:08:16] cmd:WA6LIE-3>R0MIR-1/1 [09/28/97 06:08:16]: <>: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOSCOW (Oct. 5) - Two days after the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis ended its visit, a cargo ship blasted off Sunday to deliver more than two tons of spare parts and supplies to Russia's Mir space station. The Progress M-36 cargo ship lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome. In neighboring Kazakstan on schedule at 19:08 p.m. Moscow time (11:08 a.m. EDT), Russian Mission Control said Sunday. The cargo ship will need about two days to align itself with the Mir on its orbit 250 miles above the Earth. The Atlantis also brought up key equipment, including a new computer that replaced one that was breaking down frequently, and sealant to patch holes in the Mir's Spektr module, damaged during a June collision with a cargo ship. A test conducted Friday located the site of the hole or holes, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Sunday, citing space officials. The report provided no details. The crew is planning another spacewalk, tentatively set for Oct. 20, to seal them. The cargo ship will deliver another back-up central computer and other spare parts and research equipment, along with 1,320 pounds of fuel and 80 gallons of drinking water. The Mir's central computer maintains the station in a proper position for its solar panels to receive energy from the sun. The old computer had failed five times since July, causing the station to lose power on each occasion. Each time, it took the crew a day or more to return the spacecraft to normal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By MARCIA DUNN .c The Associated Press CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Oct. 5) - After 144 days away from his family and planet, astronaut Michael Foale's return from Mir was delayed Sunday because of thick clouds that prevented a safe landing by space shuttle Atlantis. NASA waited until the last minute before ordering the seven-member shuttle crew to remain in orbit an extra day. Although the weather was good enough for an unmanned rocket to blast off with a communication satellite, the sky was too cloudy for Atlantis to attempt a tricky touchdown in darkness. Earlier in the evening, gusty wind was also a concern. If he returns Monday evening as now planned, Foale will have spent 145 days in orbit. Foale couldn't wait to see his wife and two young children and to dig into some pizza and pasta. Also on his wish list: beer and ''a lot of chocolate.'' ''Ian hasn't been crying for Daddy because he can see my excitement and he knows he's coming home,'' Rhonda Foale said of their 3-year-old son. Foale's 4 1/2 months aboard Russia's aging space station were often trying and sometimes downright scary. A cargo ship similar to the one launched to Mir from Kazakstan on Sunday plowed into the station in June, one month after Foale arrived. The 40-year-old astrophysicist - whose mission is exceeded on the U.S. side only by Shannon Lucid's 188-day Mir tour in 1996 - lost half his science experiments and almost all his personal belongings in the crash. As a result, he's coming home pretty much empty-handed; the charms he took up for his wife and friends are sealed in the ruptured lab. Frequent computer breakdowns also left Mir running on reduced power during Foale's visit. And a too-close-for-comfort satellite briefly forced him and his two Russian companions into their escape capsule in mid-September. ''When things get hard, they get easier a little bit later,'' the ever-cheerful Foale said Saturday. ''It's best to take the long view and work hard, steadily, and not let anything affect you too much.'' Because of Foale's increasingly close calls, some members of Congress and others had urged NASA to stop putting astronauts on the 11 1/2-year-old space station. But NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin discounted the objections and, just one day before Atlantis' Sept. 25 liftoff, cleared Foale's successor, David Wolf, for a four-month stay. Atlantis arrived at Mir on Sept. 27 and undocked Friday, leaving behind not only the gung-ho Wolf but a new computer, plugs for holes, spare batteries, extra tanks of pressurized air, and fresh food and water. As a final favor, the departing astronauts helped search for holes in the rammed lab. The Mir cosmonauts pumped in air, and the Atlantis crew, hovering 240 feet away, saw small scraps float from the base of the solar panel that was smashed in the crash. Russian space officials want to plug the holes and repressurize the lab for future use. But NASA managers are doubtful it can be used again. One more American is supposed to live on Mir; he would replace Wolf in January. NASA passed a milestone Sunday evening: The total flight time for all space shuttles surpassed the two-year mark just before Atlantis got the call to stay up an extra day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOUSTON -- An American and a Russian from the space shuttle Atlantis conducted a space walk today as the craft was docked at the Russian space station Mir. The two men retrieved four American science experiments that had been attached to Mir to collect debris and expose various materials to the space environment. "I can see several small, little impacts," the American astronaut, Dr. Scott E. Parazynski, said as he grabbed the first device. The next job for Dr. Parazynski and his Russian partner, Col. Vladimir G. Titov, was tying down a huge 120-pound stopper for future repairs on the ruptured space station. Inside Mir, meanwhile, the two resident Russian astronauts replaced their unreliable central computer with one delivered last weekend by Atlantis after it arrived on Saturday. The computer, which keeps Mir's solar panels pointing toward the sun, passed its initial test. In addition to carrying supplies and equipment for Mir when Atlantis was launched on Thursday from Florida, the shuttle delivered Dr. David A. Wolf to replace the American aboard the space station, C. Michael Foale. Dr. Foale, an astrophysicist, is to head back to Earth on Sunday after more than four months on Mir. Dr. Parazynski and Colonel Titov clambered up the 15-foot orange docking tunnel linking Atlantis and Mir and, one by one, removed four suitcase-size science devices and then latched them into the shuttle cargo bay. They were attached to the tunnel in March 1996 by another set of shuttle space walkers. The devices hold 1,000 samples of paint, fibers and metallic and optical coatings that might be used on future spacecraft, as well as a translucent material to trap microscopic debris. They also have gold, aluminum and zinc plates to record hits from micrometeorites. Colonel Titov became the first foreigner to conduct a space walk from a United States ship. It was the third time, though, that an American and Russian took a space walk together; the first two were from Mir in April and last month. Dr. Parazynski had to ditch a runaway tether before he could begin working outside. He reported the problem as soon as he floated out the shuttle hatch because his main lifeline would not retract once it was unreeled. About 15 to 20 feet of his cord swirled and looped every which way, and flight controllers feared that it might become entangled with equipment. "We'd just as soon not pull any more off the reel," they warned. Flight controllers advised Dr. Parazynski to use his two shorter tethers in a more strenuous, time-consuming effort that had him moving about like a mountain climber, hooking one tether and then the other to the linked spacecraft. "Just do the best you can," Mission Control said. Both space walkers wore jet packs in case their tethers broke and they floated away. And in case the jet packs failed, the hatches between the docked spacecraft were sealed so the shuttle could undock and chase a space walker. The space walkers did not survey the Mir for damage or search for holes caused by a collision with a cargo ship in late June. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said there was not enough time to train them for those tasks and, besides, the rupture is on the other side of the station. A solar panel was smashed in the collision and may be removed in another space walk. The resulting hole would be plugged by the funnel-shaped stopper taken outside by the two astronauts. Copyright 1997 The New York Times ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- M O S C O W, Sept. 16. Russia's creaking Mir space station was just minutes away from being abandoned after Junes collision with a cargo tug, a recently returned cosmonaut said in a graphic newspaper interview published on Tuesday. Alexander Lazutkin, who was the flight engineer when the crash occurred, also told the daily Komsomolsksaya Pravda he was to blame for inadvertently unplugging the power supply in July and for starting a fire in February soon after he arrived. Lazutkin said he was petrified when he saw the Progress cargo craft drifting inexorably towards its collision with the 11-year-old Mir station as commander Vasily Tsibliyev grappled with the controls. But then he snapped out of it. We Had to Survive As soon as it hit, the fear disappeared, he said. We had to succeed, to survive The crew had 24 minutes to seal off the damaged Spektr module from the rest of the sprawling complex or abandon ship. Eleven minutes elapsed, but just because we sealed off Spektr did not mean we had saved Mir, the cosmonaut said, explaining that the station had been knocked off course and was losing power because it was not soaking up enough of the suns rays. (The station) shook violently, he said. Just imagine seven tonnes hitting 130 tonnes at nearly three metres a second. The alarm sounded and the pressure began to fall immediately. To keep Mir alive, the crew, including NASA astronaut Michael Foale, manually turned solar panels to the sun. Lazutkin faced a life-and-death crisis earlier in the mission, too, when a fire broke out after he ignited a special oxygen-producing device called a candle. After Valera (fellow cosmonaut Valery Korzun) extinguished the fire, we even thought someone had switched the lights out in Kvant (one of the modules), he said. Thats how black it was. Smoke Filled The Station There were six men aboard Mir at the time four Russians, a German and a U.S. astronaut. Smoke filled the entire station and the order was given to prepare to evacuate. But the situation was stabilised, and only Korzun was hurt he was treated for burns. Fortunately, there were no poisonous fumes. I was the one who started the fire, by the way, said Lazutkin, who will be 40 next month. He said he had had great trouble adapting to the weightless conditions during the mission, his first trip into space. It was not made easier after the fire, which damaged cooling controls and left the crew who remained after the March handover sweltering for a good three months. Temperatures Reached 100 Degrees It was about 38 degrees (Celsius, 100 Fahrenheit) in the core module, he said. In the other modules it was cooler. Toward the end of Lazutkin’s mission, in mid-July, he pulled out the wrong cable. He said it was wrong to blame Tsibliyev, who suffered heart problems after the June 25 crash. Thats another myth. I pulled the cable out, he said. I was not paying attention, I was not looking at the right page. There has been much debate about who was to blame for which incident Mission Control or the crew, and if so which member. There have been several computer failures and other mishaps in recent weeks in addition to the fire and collision. But President Boris Yeltsin, who met a senior ex-cosmonaut last week, has said everyone is entitled to make mistakes in the rarefied atmosphere of a space station built to last five years but still limping on more than a decade after it was launched. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A special thanks to W6PPW for his input to MIRNEWS ** M I R N E W S ** The first exclusive MIR HAM publication Via Packet Radio All Information can be sent to: Packet: WA6LIE@WA6LIE.#CCA.CA.USA.NOAM -\- -\- -\- -\- -\-__@____-\- M I R N E W S -\- # -\- -\- # -\- Your MIR information Bulletin -\- # -\- Updated weekly or sooner # ______ #______ All information or questions can be addresses to: /// CQ MIR /// ------------- WA6LIE@WA6LIE.#CCA.CA.USA.NOAM MIR NEWS has no affilition with any other orginization, and is solely Published by WA6LIE in Aptos,California with all input from other HAMS! ______________________________________________________________________________ OCTOBER 11, 1997 ______________________________________________________________________________ Letters Home by David Wolf Dave Wolf arrived on Mir on September 27 to start his four-month stint aboard the Russian Space Station. He got there as a result of serendipidy,accident, and anguished deliberations. He was back-up to Wendy Lawrence who was originally scheduled to take this Mir increment; Dave was scheduled to replace her in January. But when the collision with the Progress resupply vessel occurred, it was decided that the American astronaut onboard Mir should be EVA qualified. Wendy is too small to fit into the Russian Orlan spacesuit, and so Dave was called upon to go in her place. The events on Mir in the last few months, dating back to the fire that Jerry Lingenger had to deal with and continuing with the collision with the Progress, and the depressurization and loss of power, had caused a great deal of concern among the public, elected officials in Washington, and NASA personnel. It became deeply controversial and divisive issue. Right up to the eve of the launch of STS-86 on September 25, it was not certain that Dave would get to stay on the Mir. But several committees evaluated all the data, and on the morning of the launch, Daniel Goldin, NASA Administrator, announced that it was safe for Dave to live and work on Mir. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 6, 1997 - Getting settled in on Mir Letters Home by David Wolf October 6, 1997 Subject:  Getting settled in on Mir It's a bigger job than one might think when every item you touch just floats off if you don't Velcro it, or strap it down, or bungee it in place. Great - my long lost - and invaluable - electric shaver just floated by. The first place to look for lost items is in one of the air filters. A bowling ball would find it's way there in 0 gravity. Unfortunately its an obstacle course on the way and a lot of items don't make it all the way. One really learns, by the school of hard knocks, to work in little sequential steps. I keep finding myself with too many things in my hands and no way to put them down. Velcro is the lifesaver for organization -- but what about 150 fm cans, 25 cassette tapes, 25 CDs, 40 sets of clothes, 7 cameras, 20 lenses, over 1000 components of scientific gear, 10 hard drives, 100 optical discs, 50 floppies, 2 critical PCMCIA memory cards (find them in all this), 4 watches, 6 computers (not counting the one we delivered for Mir -- which is working flawlessly -- knock on wood), 4 months of food, 30 packs of no-rinse shampoo, 60 more of body soap, razor blades, bottle of whiskey (just checking if you are still reading), and literally 6 tons more. The organizational/inventory task alone is daunting. Then come the radiograms instructing us to begin using all this. I just found my razor a minute ago. Darn, where did that radiogram float off to. My cubicle (really the airlock) has a view that is out of this world. I share it with three spacesuits. More later. Taking a tour of the air filters. Dave ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here is the Nasa Mir update for Oct 10: The ongoing mission of Americans to the Russian Space Station Mir is well into its next phase--astronaut David Wolf is near the end of the second week of his four- month tour of duty, and has already started work on an agenda of scientific research in the microgravity environment of low Earth orbit. Since last October 3, when he said goodbye to the space shuttle crewmates who delivered him to the Mir to take over from astronaut Mike Foale, Wolf has been working with a new protein crystallization experiment, several systems that measure disturbances in the microgravity environment, and the cell-growth experiments in the biotechnology of three-dimensional tissue engineering apparatus. On October 8, a new Progress resupply ship successfully docked to the station's Kvant-1, carrying a back-up motion control system computer, more food and water, clothing, and other personal items for the crewmembers. The next Progress is scheduled to arrive at the station early next year. This week it was officially announced that astronaut Andy Thomas will be the prime crewmember for the seventh tour of duty by an American on board the Russian space station. Thomas has been in Star City since earlier this year, training as David Wolf's backup. Now that Wolf has replaced Lawrence, Thomas is stepping up to take over Wolf's old spot. Astronaut Jim Voss, who had previously trained in Star City as back-up to Mike Foale, has now been assigned as Thomas' backthe mission targeted for a launch on the shuttle Endeavour in January. Next week, the Mir 24 crew will continue unloading the new Progress resupply ship, and press ahead with the on-orbit preparations for the planned internal spacewalk to the station's Spektr Module later this month, while David Wolf pursues his agenda of scientific research on orbit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Update - October 10, 1997 Mir 24/NASA 5 Status Report Mission Control Center -- Korolev October 10, 1997 As of mid-afternoon Moscow time today, all systems aboard the Mir Space Station were functioning normally in support of the first full week of scientific investigations by the newest member of the Mir 24 crew, U.S. astronaut Dave Wolf. Along with his crewmates, Commander Anatoly Solovyev and Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov, Wolf conducted a variety of experiments, mostly involved in biomedical studies, and watched as a new Progress resupply ship docked with the Mir on Wednesday. The Progress carried 1.7 tons of supplies for the station, including a backup Motion Control System (MCS) computer, science hardware, fresh food, 100 liters of water, and one ton of fuel. The new MCS computer will serve as a backup to the one that was brought up on the Space Shuttle Atlantis during the STS-86 mission. Another Progress resupply craft will not be needed for the Mir until after the STS-89 mission in January, the eighth shuttle-Mir docking flight. The crew also spent the week performing routine maintenance on various Mir systems. The cosmonauts replaced older batteries in the Core Module and the Kvant-2 module with new batteries brought up on Atlantis, and rearranged other batteries in the modules to insure that the batteries are fully charged. The crew also performed some routine work on the urine recovery system. The crew will assemble a new backup solid fuel oxygen generator in the days ahead and willalso perform maintenance work on the Mir's gyrodyne systems. Solovyev and Vinogradov also began their initial preparations for a second planned internal spacewalk into the Spektr module on October 20, which is designed to try and recover additional power from Spektr's functioning solar arrays by restoring the array's gimbaling, or swiveling, capability. Wolf's four-month science mission began with activity involving several different science facilities and experiments, including the Canadian Protein Crystallization Experiment (CAPE), the Optical Properties Monitor (OPM) facility, the Mir Structural Dynamics Experiment (MiSDE), and the Thermal Electric Freezer (TEF) facility. CAPE will analyze the crystalline structure of 32 proteins, in an effort to improve drug development and design. Wolf collected data during the undocking of the old Progress vehicle and the docking of the new Progress for the Mir Structural Dynamics Experiment (MiSDE). The MiSDE experiment measures the dynamic forces exerted on the Mir by vehicular dockings, thruster firings, andtivity. The data from MiSDE will be used to verify force functions, dynamic models, and structural loads for the International Space Station. Wolf is nearing the start of his third week as a Mir crewmember. He is in the midst of a four-month mission that will end in January when he is replaced by Andy Thomas who will be carried into orbit aboard Endeavour on the STS-89 mission. Solovyev and Vinogradov have been aboard the Mir since August 7, and will not return to Earth until February.