Soyuz-TM19 started from Baykonur on 1.07.94 at 1224 UTC.

Soyuz-TM19 has a crew of two: Yuriy Malenchenko and Tolgat Musabayev. For a long time the status of this flight was unknown: Musabayev's native country is Kazakhstan, but he was supposed to fly as an officer of the Russian airforce. Now the flight has been announced as a Russian-Kazakh expedition. Russia paid for the preparations and Kazakhstan will pay a contribution for Musabayev's activities on board Mir. All went well during the launch and the first day of the flight. The cosmonauts use the call sign Agat-1 and Agat-2. The crew has no problems with micro-gravity and space sickness. During the 3d orbit at 1527 UTC the ship came in our range. Malenchenko reported that all was going according to plan and the results were positive. The pressure of the atmosphere on board was 803 mm. Already during the next pass (orb. 4, 1656 UTC) Malenchenko reported the first 2 orbit corrections accomplished as needed and without any problems. During the following pass (orb. 5, 1837 UTC) Malenchenko announced that the 3d orbit correction would take place at 18 hrs 47mins and 45 secs UTC. As usual during such flights: radio contact with TsUP on 121.- 750 mc and telemetry and beacons on 166, 165 and 922.755 mc.

Progress-M23: As soon as TsUP was sure that all went well with Soyuz-TM19 the undocking of Progress-M23 was possible and took place on 2.07.94 at 0841 UTC. The landing of the VBK (ballistic return capsule) had to take place on 2.07.94 at 1500 UTC at 150 KM North East of the town Orsk, within Russian territory, so no need to pay import duties.

Estimated docking day and time of Soyuz-TM19 with Mir:

3.07.94 at 1404 UTC, so just after LOS for us after the first pass of Mir and Soyuz-TM19 for our position.

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