PIONEER I, U.S.-IGY space probe under direction of NASA and with the AFBMD as executive agent, launched from AMR, Cape Canaveral, Fla., by a Thor-Able-I booster. It raveled 70,700 miles before returning to earth, determined radial extent of great radiation belt, first observations of earth's and interplanetary magnetic field, and first measurements of micrometeorite density in interplanetary space.

Officials of STG heard oral reports from representatives of five industrial teams bidding on the contract for the Apollo spacecraft: General Dynamics/Astronautics in conjunction with the Avco Corporation; General Electric Company, Missile and Space Vehicle Department, in conjunction with Douglas Aircraft Company, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, and Space Technology Laboratories, Inc.; McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in conjunction with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Hughes Aircraft Company, and Chance Vought Corporation of Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc.; The Martin Company; and North American Aviation, Inc. Additional Details: here....

In a paper presented at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' fourth manned space flight meeting in St. Louis, AAP Director William B. Taylor described the focus and importance of the AAP. In contrast to Apollo, with its clear objective of lauding on the Moon, AAP's objectives were much less obvious. Under AAP, Taylor said, NASA planned to exploit the capabilities being developed for Apollo as a technological bridge to more extensive manned space flight missions of the 1970s and 1980s. AAP was not an end in itself, but rather a beginning to build flight experience, technology, and scientific data. Additional Details: here....

At Area 31 one of the Soyuz has thermoregulation system problems and is in repair - it can't be used for flight training. Kamanin notes that Apollo 7 has been launched - the Americans are back in space after almost two years and on the schedule announced a month ago.

Apollo 7 (AS-205), the first manned Apollo flight, lifted off from Launch Complex 34 at Cape Kennedy Oct. 11, carrying Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Donn F. Eisele, and R. Walter Cunningham. The countdown had proceeded smoothly, with only a slight delay because of additional time required to chill the hydrogen system in the S-IVB stage of the Saturn launch vehicle. Liftoff came at 11:03 a.m. EDT. Shortly after insertion into orbit, the S-IVB stage separated from the CSM, and Schirra and his crew performed a simulated docking with the S-IVB stage, maneuvering to within 1.2 meters of the rocket. Although spacecraft separation was normal, the crew reported that one adapter panel had not fully deployed. Two burns using the reaction control system separated the spacecraft and launch stage and set the stage for an orbital rendezvous maneuver, which the crew made on the second day of the flight, using the service propulsion engine.

Crew and spacecraft performed well throughout the mission. During eight burns of the service propulsion system during the flight, the engine functioned normally. October 14, third day of the mission, witnessed the first live television broadcast from a manned American spacecraft.

Tested spacecraft systems and designs, manoeuvring of space craft with respect to each other in orbit, conducted scientific, technical and medico-biological experiments in group flight. Carried Vulkan welding furnace for vacuum welding experiments in depressurized orbital module. Was to have taken spectacular motion pictures of Soyuz 7 - Soyuz 8 docking but failure of rendezvous electronics in all three craft due to new helium pressurization integrity test prior to mission did not permit successful rendezvous and dockings. Additional Details: here....

Unmanned resupply vessel to Mir, carried a Raduga reentry capsule for return of experimental materials to earth. Docked with Mir on 13 Oct 1993 23:24:46 GMT. Undocked on 21 Nov 1993 02:38:43 GMT. Capsule landed in Kazakhstan on 21 Nov 1993 09:06:00 GMT. Total free-flight time 2.35 days. Total docked time 38.13 days.

Stationed at 77 deg E. Relaying of telegraph and telephone information. Improved Altair/SR geosynchronous satellite for communication with Mir space station and other orbital spacecraft. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 77 deg E in 1995-1999 As of 2 September 2001 located at 75.63 deg E drifting at 0.029 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 77.39E drifting at 0.002E degrees per day.

During the last weeks the frequency in which my MirNEWS-es appeared decreased a little bit. Main causes of this reduction were the loss of the geostationary communication satellite Altair-2 as an information source, and the fact that Mir-passes merely took place during the night hours. So the VHF-passes, on which I now can only depend did not give much information. Meanwhile Mir is passing again during the evening and afternoon, and the amount of communications has considerably increased. Fortunately sufficient information can be derived from VHF communications and so my work remains to be meaningful. In fact I did not have the Altair-facilities before 1992 and after the installation of an own dish for those communications in 1994 there have been long periods in which the satellite was not available. After the drop out of Altair-1 in the beginning of 1997, due to an attitude problem bringing that satellite in a sun-pointing position, I had to wait until that summer when the Altair-2 was replaced from 96 degrees East to 16 degrees West.

Mir-routine:

During the full period after my previous MirNEWS (440) , TsUP and the crew regularly discussed problems regarding the oxygen production for Mir's mini atmosphere. Every day the cosmonauts were engaged in the functioning of the Elektron oxygen generators. These systems did not fail, but it was clear that the crew did not trust the automatic functioning of them, and took over manually at every given moment. The crew did not have problems with the BKV-3, the air conditioner. Recently this system showed glitches when the cosmonauts switched it on.

On 3.10.1998 the attitude control was discussed. There was no failure, the crew spoke about the SUD (system for control of movements). From the given commands and the use of the indication Quaternion (a coefficient of 2 vectors) could be derived that for a while the attitude was not under control by the gyrodynes. Possibly a reset operation took place. Regularly the gyrodynes have to be reset to the starting point.

On 5.10.1998 TsUP told the crew that there had been a session of the Contract Commission. The session was a rather tumultuous one, because among other things they discussed problems experienced by the previous expedition (Musabayev and Budarin). The man at TsUP evaluated the results of that session as 'favourable'. Somebody of that commission (possibly named Rodionov) had ordered TsUP to pass on to the present Mir-crew that the 'leadership was highly pleased with the work of the crew'. If Padalka and Avdeyev might have problems they immediately could pass these to him. The man had also promised to follow radio-communications as much as possible.

On 6.10.1998 Avdeyev discussed with TsUP an audio measurement experiment. In the beginning this was not so successful, this in contrary to the execution of the same experiment in the past. Avdeyev just started the adjustment of parameters and later discussions made it clear that the experiment was running well. Padalka asked for an advice about the Holter experiment (an American cardio-vascular experiment).

On 7.10.1998 the same audio experiment (possibly Intrazvuk) was accomplished. That day the cosmonauts discussed the inventory of the French experiments on board Mir.

On 8.10.1998 the cosmonauts showed a great interest in the protest demonstrations which had taken place the day before. It was clear that they agreed 100% the demands of the demonstrators. TsUP gave a short report about the demonstrations, the numbers of the participants (more than our media told us), the many red (communist) and blue (trade-union) flags and the fact that even army chiefs were there. Padalka asked the man at TsUP if he had received his salary. The man said that he had indeed received it.

On 9.10.1998 there was some confusion about a number of Telemetry connections. The data of some life system channels did not reach TsUP and TsUP was not able to give commands and data inquiries via the 'uplink'. The cosmonauts repeatedly interchanged a number of connections and thus solved the problem. TsUP supposed that the problem was caused during the expedition of Solovyov and Vinogradov.

On 10.10.1998 TsUP spoke about the possibility that the CO2 amount in Mir's atmosphere was too high. Telemetry gave a value of 5.9. Padalka said that nothing was wrong and that they still felt excellent. Avdeyev checked the Vozdukh CO-2 filter and did not find anomalies. Later the value had been increased to 6.0 and the crew took counter measures by using ventilators to blow the air through the whole complex. This did not help. To decrease the CO2 amount the crew got orders to adjust the Vozdukh scrubber in the Base Block.

Progress-M40:

In MirNEWS.440 the possibility of the delay of the launch of this freighter had been reported. Meanwhile there has been confirmed that the launch has been put back from 15.10 to 25.10.1998 due to funding problems. The launch on 25.10, a Sunday, was chosen for ballistic reasons.

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

ISS Logistics flight. 100th shuttle flight. Launch delayed from October 6. STS-92 brought the Z-1 Truss (mounted on a Spacelab pallet), Control Moment Gyros, Pressurised Mating Adapter-3 (PMA-3) and two DDCU (Heat pipes) to the International Space Station.

The RSRM-76 solid rocket boosters separated at 23:19 GMT and main engine cut-off (MECO) came at 23:25 GMT. External tank ET-104 separated into a 74 x 323 km x 51.6 deg orbit. At apogee at 00:01 GMT on Oct 12, Discovery's OMS engines fired to raise perigee to a 158 x 322 km x 51.6 deg orbit; ET-104 re-entered over the Pacific around 00:30 GMT. At Oct 12 on 03:01 GMT the NC1 burn raised the orbit to 180 x 349 km; NC3 on Oct 12 to 311 x 375 km; and the TI burn at 14:09 GMT on Oct 13 to 375 x 381 km x 51.6 deg. Discovery's rendezvous with the International Space Station came at 15:39 GMT on Oct 13, with docking at 17:45 GMT. The spaceship docked with PMA-2, the docking port on the +Y port of the Space Station's Unity module. Hatch was open to PMA-2 at 20:30 GMT the same day.

STS-92 Cargo Manifest

• Bay 1-2: Orbiter Docking System + 3 EMU spacesuits
• Bay 5 Port: Adapter Beam with DDCU-HP control unit
• Bay 5 Starboard: Adapter Beam with DDCU-HP control unit
• Bay 7-8: Spacelab Pallet MD003 with PMA-3
• Bay 10-12: ISS Z1 first segment of the space station truss
• Bay 13 Adapter Beam with IMAX Cargo Bay Camera
• Sill: Canadarm RMS 301

Total payload bay cargo: ca. 14,800 kg

The Z1 first segment of the space station truss was built by Boeing/Canoga Park and was 3.5 x 4.5 meters in size. It was attached to the +Z port on Unity. Z1 carried the control moment gyros, the S-band antenna, and the Ku-band antenna.

PMA-3, built by Boeing/Huntington Beach, was docked to the -Z port opposite Z1. PMA-3 was installed on a Spacelab pallet for launch.

On October 14 at 16:15 GMT the Z1 segment was unberthed from the payload bay and at around 18:20 GMT it was docked to the zenith port on the Unity module.

On October 15 at 14:20 GMT the ODS airlock was depressurised, beginning a spacewalk by Bill McArthur and Leroy Chiao. Official NASA EVA duration (battery power to repress) was 6 hours 28 minutes.

The second spacewalk was on October 16, with Jeff Wisoff and Mike Lopez-Alegria. The suits went to battery power at 14:15 GMT and Wisoff left the airlock at 14:21 GMT. Repressurisation began at 21:22 GMT for a duration of 7 hours 07minutes.

Leroy Chiao and Bill McArthur began the third STS-92 EVA at 15:30 GMT on October 17, completing their work at 22:18 GMT for a total time of 6 hours 48 minutes.

After the spacewalk, Discovery completed the second of the three station reboosts scheduled for STS-92. They fired reaction control system jets in a series of pulses of 1.4 seconds each, over a 30-minute period, gently raising the station's orbit by about 3.1 km.

The last of four successful spacewalks began on 18 October at 16:00 GMT and ended at 22:56 GMT, lasting 6 hours and 56 minutes. Jeff Wisoff and Mike Lopez-Alegria each jetted slowly through space above Discovery's cargo bay.

After the space walk, Discovery completed the third and final reboost of the space station.

On 19 October the astronauts worked within the ISS. They completed connections for the newly installed Z1 external framework structure and transferred equipment and supplies for the Expedition One first resident crew of the Station. The crew also tested the four 290-kg gyroscopes in the truss, called Control Moment Gyros, which will be used to orient the ISS as it orbits the Earth. They will ultimately assume attitude control of the ISS following the arrival of the U.S. Laboratory Destiny. The tests and the transfer of supplies into the Russian Zarya Module took longer than expected. As a result, the crew's final departure from the Station's Unity module was delayed. Melroy and Wisoff took samples from surfaces in Zarya to study the module's environment. They then unclogged the solid waste disposal system in the Shuttle's toilet, which was restored to full operation after a brief interruption in service.

Discovery undocked from the ISS at 16:08 GMT on 20 October. The final separation burn was executed about 45 minutes after undocking. The crew had added 9 tonnes to the station's mass, bringing it to about 72 tonnes. The return to earth, planned for 22 October, was delayed repeatedly due to high winds at the Kennedy landing site. The landing was finally made at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on October 24, at 22:00 GMT.

The Atlas AC-162 Centaur entered a 176 x 907 km x 28.2 deg parking orbit at 0242 GMT and then made a second burn to deploy its payload in a 274 x 37538 km x 26.5 deg geostationary transfer orbit at 0301 GMT. USA 162 was rumoured to be a data relay satellite used to return data from imaging satellites similar to the one launched on October 5 2001. It was also possible that the satellite is a signals intelligence payload. The satellite is owned and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

After a very busy day Thursday, the combined shuttle and space station crew took several hours of off-duty time today, and then began transfer operations between the vehicles and preparations for the second of the mission's three spacewalks scheduled to begin at 9:41 a.m. Saturday. Additional Details: here....