The launch from Baykonur of Soyuz-TM22 is still on schedule for 3.09.95 at 0900 UTC. Soyuz-TM22 will carry the relief crew (the 20th Main expedition) to the Mir-station together with the ESA astronaut, the German, Thomas Reiter. The Russian crew consists of the Mir's captain Yuriy Gidzenko, who will make his first spaceflight, and the board-engineer Sergey Avdeyev, who already made 1 spaceflight. This crew and the stand-in crew flew to Baykonur on 23.08.95 to accomplish their final training.

Mir: During the past weeks the complex passed during the night hours. Meanwhile the passes shifted to the afternoon en evening hours. The clear skies during the evenings made good visual observations possible. The cosmonauts executed a lot of experiments and repairs. They installed new gyrodynes in Module-D and resolved airseal problems. Probably one or more gyrodyne cases showed leaks. The cosmonauts solved this problem using a lute named 'germetik'. They did this by putting this lute around some leaking electric sockets.

Scarce information: During the past weeks it was difficult for me to maintain sufficient grip on the Mir-operations. This due to family circumstances, the night passes of the complex and the capricious behaviour of the geostationary satellite Altair. (see File ALTC2054.TXT.)

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