Soyuz-TM30 docked at
MIR-spacestation.
The last meters of the
approach and the docking were executed in the manual mode. Just
before reaching a distance of 9 meters the cosmonauts saw a deviation
of 1 or 2 degrees along one of the axes. (Some press
reports said that just before the docking the approach was
again in the automatic mode, but a TsUP’s spokesman denied
this.)
The docking (the so called
‘kasaniye’, soft mate) took place on 6.04.2000 at 06.31.24UTC. (Again
differences in press reports varying between 0630 and
0633UTC)
Radiotraffic during the final
phase of the approach between 0619-0622UTC. At 06.19.50UTC
Zalyotin reported a distance of 167 and also that he had no remarks
on the ‘automatic mode’.
During 2 orbits after the
docking (MIR’s orbits 80783 and 80784) communication took place
from inside Soyuz-TM30. The egalisation of the pressures in MIR and
S-TM30 lasted rather long. At 0756UTC the pressure in MIR was 572 mm
mercury, in S-TM30 633 mm. At 0932UTC the crew switched on the
TV transmitter for the transmission of images of the opening of the
hatches and the entering of the crew into MIR.
During the pass in MIR’s orbit
nr. 80785, between 1102-1107UTC, radiotraffic could be monitored in
the old good frequency 143.625 mc.
The crew had been blowing
additional air in MIR’s atmosphere, which increased the pressure to
628 mm. For this measurement they used only one
manovacuummeter.
Meanwhile they had deconserved
the Central Post, the transition chamber (PRK) to Kvant-1 (Module-E)
and the Kvant-1 itself.
In following reports the crew
stated that the air on board was good, but the temperature a little
bit too high, 26 degrees Celsius.
They also reported about a lot
of routine work (loading commands into computers) and they paid a lot
of attention to valves and extra airpressure checks.
Chris van den Berg,
NL-9165/A-UK3202
