MIRNEWS.400                                  22 DECEMBER 1997
Inspektor: On 17.12.97 the planned orbit correction of the MIR did not take 
place due to a problem with a format mistak e in the received computer data.  
A very little correction was executed the next day. On this day, 18.12, the 
cosmonaut s tried as much as possible to observe Inspektor visually and by 
distance measuring equipment.  Regularly they reported
 their findings to TsUP.  During the pass in orbit 67581 (1550-1600UTC) they 
saw how Inspektor flew lower with  the ear th in the background.  At 
151052UTC the distance between MIR and Inspektor was 760 Meters and at 
151403UTC  885 Meters.
 After this observation Inspektor 'walked' out of the sight of the porthole. 
Freon leak: Already on 18.12 the attention for Inspektor was distracted by a 
technical problem.  Out of the BKV-3 (airc onditioner) leaked Freon away.  On 
19 as well as on 20.12 Solovyov and Vinogradov worked hard on this problem. 
The work
 also involved the functioning of other life supporting systems and they also 
spoke about the 'separation of cooling- a nd/or heating loops'.  Sometimes it 
was extremely difficult to reach areas in which they had to work.  For a long 
time I did not understand what the real problem was for they did not use the 
word 'freon' in their conversations.  On 20.12 an American consultant at TsUP 
told David Wolf that there was a freon leak. Wolf knew about it, but he did 
not know whe re the freon came from. His countryman at TsUP told him that the 
leak was in the BKV-3.  He also stated that there was no danger to the health 
of the crew, but he asked David to take an air sample in the area of the 
BKV-3. 
Progress-M36: On 19.12.97 this freighter decayed in the atmosphere over the 
Pacific. The de-orbit burn was given at 132 001UTC and Pr-M37 'ceased its 
existance' at 135901UTC. 
Progress-M37: One of the greatest achievements in Russian spaceflight is the 
fact  that launches almost always take pla ce exactly at the announced time. 
This  launch was scheduled for 20.12.97 at 0845UTC.  The Russians again gave 
an examp le of their mastership in this field: the launch from Baykonur took 
place at 08.45.01UTC! During the 4th and 5th orbit the telemetry  and beacon 
transmitters could be monitored in Western Europe. During the pa ss in the 
5th orbit  between 1451 and 1457UTC the signals were very strong on all 
frequencies. For my position I had a TCA (Time Closest Approach) at 
145240UTC. At that moment the received frequency  was exactly  922.755 mc.  
On 21.12 the
 Pr-M37 was still as fit as a fiddle which could be derived from the strong 
signals during the pass in the 20th orbit w ith a TCA at 132432UTC.
 
Approach and docking Pr-M37: The estimated docking time (1045UTC)  given in 
MIRNEWS.399 was incorrect. This time had to
 be appr. 20 minutes earlier.  I could not give an E-mail with the correction 
due to a malfunctioning E-mail server of my Internet provider. (A children's 
complaint after the fusion of 2 Dutch Internet providers.)
For a long time the approach could be derived from traffic via Altair-2. This 
traffic started at 0948UTC and continued until 2 minutes before the actual 
docking.  Both cosmonauts were active during this by TORU guided operation.  
Vinograd ov played an importand role during this remote control and before 
the final phase of the approach started he thoroughly
 tested the TORU system.
During the operation Solovyov reported distances and approach speeds.  2 
minutes before the 'touch' they switched over to a television transmission, 
but there were no images.  Possibly the images of the approach had been given 
via the TOR U transmitters.  Pr-M37 docked at the aft (Kvant-1  +X-axis) of 
the complex at 10.22.14UTC.  Pr-M37 delivered the norma l supplies,   
presents and post for the crew and a rubber gasket-ring for the repair of the 
hatch of the Module-D airlo ck. 
The crew had opened the hatches to Progress-M37 earlier than planned. Already 
during the pass in the next orbit the hat ches were open.
Climate on board:   Still far from comfortable.  Also due to the problems 
with BKV-3 (freon leak) and less than 100% pe rformance of the cooling and 
heating systems the differences in temperature and humidity between the 
modules of the com plex are great.  It is too hot in the Base Block and the 
Kvant-1 and in other compartments its is too cold with a lot o f 
condensation. 
After the docking of Pr-M37 the crew got orders to deploy an airhose from the 
Central Post in the Base Block to the BO (lifecompartment of the ship 
Soyuz-TM26). 
In the evening of 22.12 the head of flight control in Moscow, Vladimir 
Alekseyevich Solovyov,  spoke with the commander
 of MIR, Anatoliy Yakovlev Solovyov about 'considerations' resulting in 
'proposals' about the plans for the near future . Instead of 3 spacewalks 
(EVA's) V.A. spoke about 2 EVA's,  just like had been planned in the 
beginning: on 5 and 12.0 1.1998.  More time might be needed to be sure of a 
better preparation for the EVA on 5.1.98, during which the EVA hatch
 of Module-D has to be repaired.  The successful repair of that hatch is a 
condition for the eventual American-Russian EVA on 12.01.1998. So the EVA for 
30.12.1997 will be cancelled.  A.Ya. Solovyov  agrees, but in his opinion 
things like
 this can be better analysed on earth than in space. 
Chris van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202
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