MIRNEWS.368                                            7 JULY 1997
Progress-M35:  The start of this cargoship from Baykonur took place on 
5.07.97 at 04.11.54UTC.  During the pass in orb.
 2, 0847-850UTC, the Telemetry transmissions in the 166 and 165 mc could be 
heard  and during the pass in the next orbi t these transmissions, but also 
those of the beacon in the 922.755mc could be monitored. On 6.07.1997 during 
the passes in the orbits 18, 19 and 20 good signals on all frequencies and 
with the Dopplershift on
 922.755 mc 2 times TCA's could be determined: 071751 and 085100UTC.
Progress-M35,  approach and docking:  Again all went of old: a stable and 
reliable execution of this operation by the a utomatic system Kurs. The 
docking took place on 7.07.1997 at 05.59.24UTC.  During MIR's orbit 65015 
from 0549-0554UTC t he approach was going on. At AOS the Pr-M35 was in a 
distance of 147 M.  Tsibliyev reported very little deviations in t he course 
and attitude of Pr-M35. There was a stable GSO (gyrostabilized orientation) 
and all went so successful that T sibliyev could load some date, given him by 
TsUP, in a computer.  Just before LOS the distance was still 120 M and the 
approach was continued with a speed of 30 CM\sec. During the next passes they 
did not speak about the opening of the ha tches to Pr-M35. The main subject 
was the good functioning of the gyrodynes, the good attitude of the complex  
and the fact that the solar arrays had been turned to a good angle in 
relation to the sun.  The accumulators could be fully cha rged.  The crew has 
to remove temporarily the spacesuits from the P.Kh.O. (transition section)  
to get more room for th e transfer of goods from Pr-M35 to the rest of the 
complex. 
The Russians deserve a heartfelt 'Molodtsy' (well done fine fellows). 
But please let those responsible for Russian manned spaceflight as soon as 
possible make a deal with the Ukrainian fact ory Khartron for the restoration 
of the delivery of the system Kurs. In that way docking-operations can be 
executed wit h a 99.99% reliability!!
Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202
--- Maximus 2.01
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