On 1 July 1993 at 1433 UTC the transport ship Soyuz-TM17 was launched for a flight of 2 days to the Mir Space station. The first crew had been chosen and so Soyuz-TM17 was manned by Tsibliyev, Serebrov and the Frenchman Haignere. The French women cosmonaut Claudie Andre-Deshays will have to wait until 1996 for her flight on board the Mir station to conduct experiments of the French program Cassiopea. 3 Hours after launch Soyuz-TM17 came in our range (orbit 3, 1734 UTC) and strong signals of the 5 transmitters could be monitored (922.755, 165.873, 166.130, 166.140 and 121.750 mc). Tsibliyev reported that all was normal and that health and mood of the crew were excellent. They already had taken off their spacesuits and had just entered the 'life-compartment'. At 1656 UTC they had re-oriented their ship. This crew uses the call 'Ceres', so respectively Ceres-1, Ceres-2 and Ceres-3. So Haignere is 'Ceres-3'. During his return flight on 22 July 1993 he will be a member of Manakov's crew, the Vulkans, and then Haignere will use the call 'Vulkan-3'. During the pass in orbit 4, 1903 UTC, Tsibliyev reported all details about the 2nd orbit correction, which was executed during that pass. All went as scheduled. This had been also the case with the 1st orbit correction. Tsibliyev reported details about this correction as well for during that correction Soyuz-TM17 was out of range of tracking stations. Among the reported data were the times (in seconds) during which the S.K.D. (engines) worked, the gained speed in M/sec, the so called SIRT (fuel consumption in KG) and some pressures in tanks. During the pass in orb. 5 (2036 UTC) again radio traffic loud and clear. During the next pass the cosmonauts slept. At 221345 UTC Soyuz-T17 could be seen passing the TCA as a clear star in elevation 39 degrees. On 2 July 1993 Soyuz-TM17 will be flying autonomously. She will pass at abt. 30 minutes after Mir. Towards midnight Soyuz-TM17 as well as Mir can be observed visually if weather conditions are good. Docking can be expected on 3 July 1993 between 1615 and 1620 UTC, so not long after the first pass of both objects. If the Russians will stick to previous plans the freighter Progress-M17 will undock under observation of the approaching S- TM17. Soyuz-TM17 will dock to the docking port from where Progress-M17 undocked.

Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.