MIRNEWS.329                 19 SEPTEMBER 1996
  
  Atlantis docked at MIR:
  
  'Readdy was ready'  and he controlled the free drift with 
  a speed of appr. 2.5 cm/sec of Atlantis to MIR during the
  final phase of the approach. The result was a perfect 
  soft docking on 19.09.96 at 0313UTC.  The original
  operationschedule was almost executed on the minute,
  except for the time of the 'touch', which had been put
  forward by 4 minutes.  For friends in Western Europa who
  use to monitor radiotransmissions during such operations
  this was a blessing for it meant that the docking could
  take place within the window for both objects on MIR's
  orbit nr. 60468,  0307-0315UTC.  So at 031330UTC they
  could hear Readdy reporting in Russian: 'KASANIYE' 
  (touch).  For this report he used the 130.165 mc FM  and
  immediately after his report commander Korzun in MIR
  reported on 143.625 mc that he had a positive indication
  about the docking. Monitoring people always hope that
  they can pick up that important word 'kasaniye' during
  dockings of Soyuz- and Progress-ships, but mostly the
  moment of that touch takes place just a few minutes after
  LOS of their position,  in the past this occurred  a few
  times during Soyuz-TM dockings.  Of course it is always
  possible to log the traffic during such dockings in the
  final phase of the approach.  This time there was not
  much radiotraffic before the 'touch' for Readdy had to do
  his job with concentration and everybody was watching the
  operation silently.  TV-images transmitted by TV-stations
  revealed that there were no direct images from camera's
  on board MIR. So possibly the geostationary Luches:  
  Altair-1 and 2 were not in use.  During the first 3
  docking missions these images could be seen simul-
  tanuously with the images from Atlantis , relayed by
  TDRS-s.  Certainly we will get images made from inside
  MIR during the docking operation, but these were recorded
  and transmitted to earth later. During the next pass of
  the enormous space-complex (in orb. MIR nr. 60469,  0441-
  0453UTC)  the MIR-crew already had accomplished the air-
  seal checks and opened 2 hatches of the SO (docking
  compartment).  They also had removed things which had
  been necessary during the docking and now had to be
  stowed away.  Just before LOS for our position Korzun
  tried to communicate via 130.165 mc with Atlantis to get
  information about the proceedings there. Opening of the
  hatches from Atlantis to MIR took place at 0539UTC, so
  not in our VHF-range.  Via TV-stations receiving relays
  via a TDRS we could see nice images of the meeting of
  both crews and the first  gathering on board MIR.
  
  SAREX STS-79: During this mission there might be radio-
  amateuractivities by the astronauts-radio-amateurs Jay
  Apt (N5QWL), Carl Walz (KC5TIE) and John Blaha (KC5TZQ). 
  Sarex VHF downlink is 145.840 mc FM with uplink
  frequencies: 144.450 and 144.470 mc FM.   Please do not
  use 145.840 mc FM for 'uplink'  or  -during Atlantis
  passes -local bragging. 
  
  Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202  
--- Maximus 2.01
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