MIRNEWS.356                                                      25 APRIL 
97
1st  Spacewalk (EVA) MIR 23/NASA 4:
Vo chto by to ni stalo. 
This is the Russian analogue for 'At any cost'.  Monitoring radiotraffic 
during the last days I realised that those res ponsible for this MIR/NASA 
expedition decided to stick to the EVA on 29.04.97 and this made me use  this 
expression as a sub-title for my report about that EVA. 
In fact I expected that the long sequence of serious technical problems and 
consequently the enormous strain for the cr ew justified the cancellation or 
at least a suspension of that EVA.  Officially has been announced that the 
situation o n board is almost back to normal and that the health condition of 
Tsibliyev and Linenger is such that they can do that EVA. 
The EVA is on schedule for 29.04.1997 at 0450UTC (opening of the hatch) and 
will last 5 hours and 30 minutes.  Using  s pacesuits of a new design  
delivered to MIR by the freighter Progress-M34, Tsibliyev and Linenger will 
install American
 experiments at the outersurfaces of Kvant-2 (Module-D) and the SO (the 
docking compartment at the Kristall (Module-T).
  They also will retrieve similar experiments which had been installed there 
in the past. Today the 'spacewalkers' trai ned for that EVA. In the past the 
preparations for EVA's started a long time before the planned date en during 
the last
 few days crews always fully concentrated on the oncoming EVA.  They always 
got 1 or 2 days off to enable them to start
 the EVA as fit as possible.  This time the preparations started only a few 
days ago and they had to use a part of the time for maintenance and repair 
activities. The cosmonauts are very tired and they yearn for a day off.  
Another proble m during this EVA is the communications infrastructure. There 
is no Luch available. Altair-2 is still moving to the Wes t and not 
operational at the moment.  In the very beginning when there were no 
geostationary satellites availble for MI R-TsUP (or: Salyut - Zarya) 
communications  Russia had a fleet of trackingships all over the world. Of 
this fleet only 4 ships are left,  2 of which are operational, but they have 
to remain in St Petersburg until there are means for explo itation.  It is 
true that TsUP has the possiblity to use Dryden and Wallops in the USA and 
Oberpfaffenhofen in Germany,
 but that is not enough to fill up all the gaps in the infrastructure.  
Telemetry monitoring during EVA's is essential.
  If all goes well Tsibliyev and Linenger can be heard while they are on  
their way back to the airlock of Module-D dur ing MIR's orbit 63941 between 
1000 and 1030UTC on 29.04.
During a short interview with an American radiostation  Linenger on 
23.04.1997 told, that they had a rough time, but th at they  succeeded in 
restoring the situation almost back to normal and that they all were doing 
fine. About the leakag es of the cooling system in Kvant-1 and the eventual 
influence of ethylene glycol on the health of the crew he said tha t the 
effects in the long run are still unknown. 
 
Solar orbit: In my MIRNEWS.355 I suggested that the next period in which the 
MIR-complex would  remain permanently in t he sun was to begin in a 'few' 
days. This was an error. The next solar-orbit period will be in the first 
week of June. 
Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202
--- Maximus 2.01
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