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Aviation History
1989
1989 - 1074.PDF
launched in 1987 and docked with some difficulty, requiring an emergency EVA by the resident crew. Unlike the other modules, which will use the five-port docking pod on the front of Mir, Kvant is mounted on the back, and is provided with its own docking port to take Soyuz TM manned ferries or unmanned Progress tankers. Kvant is an international astrophysics laboratory and, had it not been for this module, the long-duration resident crews, such as the Titov-Manarov duo who clocked up a year in space late last year, would have had little to do. Even Kvant fell victim to Earthbound problems. It was scheduled to have carried a remote-sensing camera which was displayed in a mockup of Kvant at the Paris Air Show in 1987, but this is not aboard the laboratory. Most of the Mir crews' experiments and equipment have been delivered by Progress tankers. In future, experiment mounts will be erected on the outside of Kvant and Mir, thereby allowing the autonomous operation of equipment. Telescopes and cameras will have instru ment pointing systems, to save Mir the expensive business of orientating itself to point at the sky or Earth. When the first 20-tonne-class module arrives at Mirt it will first dock at the front of the five-pod port. It will utilise, for the first time, Mir's unique and rather basic mechan ical arm, which will transfer it from the front docking port to a side port, probably after its propulsion module has been used to re-boost Mir's orbit. Orbital decay As new modules are docked to Mir, the space station's orbital decay rate will increase, says Soviet analyst Phil Clark. Soyuz and Progress tankers are not capable of boosting the orbit significantly. The final Progress boost before the new module arrives is likely to take the station to a 400km altitude operational orbit. The arm is attached to the module, and rotates and grasps an attachment on the docking pod. The module then undocks, moves away a very short distance, and is rotated around to a side port for hard docking—not by power from the arm, but by very careful thrusting by Mir to pitch the module correctly. The arrival of this module will also require the Soyuz TM to move to the Kvant port until the module has been positioned on the side port at the front. TM will then have to move back to the front port, leaving the rear port free to take Progress or other tankers which dock at the rear because they are often used to pump water and propellants into Mir. Alternatively, should the new module be stacked with supplies, the Soyuz could stay docked to the back for the arrival of the second module. The new module is 12-5m long, has a diameter of 4- lm, and weighs 20-6 tonnes. Soyuz TM8 on its way to an April 19 launch from Baikonur It provides additional life-support systems— including a shower—and a large EVA work station, with a new lm-wide hatch. This module is based on the Heavy Cosmos modules that docked with the Salyut space station, one of which had a re-entry capsule capable of returning 500kg to Earth, and which may be included on later modules. The new module will also deploy a new set of solar arrays. The next module, which should follow quite rapidly, will also be a 20-tonne-class Heavy Cosmos type, and will eventually be placed on an opposite port. This will presumably be the "technology" module devoted to the "pilot production of extra pure microcrystals" for electronics and laser applications. According to the latest Soviet plans, two other corresponding modules will be Heavy Cosmos types, but they could be Kvant-class small modules, according to some illustra tions released by Soviet artists. Much will depend on the schedule and the availability of the Energia-Buran system to replace old modules by new ones or ones with different applications. Kvant-class modules could have their own docking ports for additional smaller modules to link up to. The delay to the development of Mir, however, does not detract from the enor mous strides the Soviet Union has made in long-duration spaceflight. Mir has been permanently manned since Yuri Romanenko and Alexander Laveikin arrived there in February 1987. It has housed several crews on long-duration and visiting missions, including the Intercosmos missions by Syria, Bulgaria and Afghanistan. Many earlier Intercosmos missions to the Salyut space station, however, were political flights "of no value whatsoever", a Soviet space commen tator admitted recently. These did not include Frenchman Jean Loup Chretien's 1982 mission to Salyut 7, which he followed up with a second spaceflight to Mir last year. This lasted 25 days and contributed much science and technological experience to the Soviet programme. A record 366 days in space has been clocked up by Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov, proving that, given the correct exercise regime and medication, long flights are possible, even to Mars. Missions in 1989 will be restricted to two six-month flights, however, mainly because the biomedical scientists are still studying a backlog of long-duration-flight data, dating back to Yuri Romanenko's 326-day odyssey in 1987. Mir's present resident crew, cosmonauts Alexander Voklov, Sergei Krikalerv and Dr Valeri Polyakov, will return to Earth on April 29 after the six-month TM7 mission, and will be replaced by the TM8 crew, due to be launched on April 19. This crew, which comprises Alexander Viktorenko and Sere- brov's replacement, Alexander Balandin, is scheduled for a six-month mission. An attempted 18-month mission could follow another six-month flight set to begin on October 10 with the launch of Soyuz TM9, presumably with Serebrov at last in the flight engineer's seat. The date is estimated, assuming a 180-day flight by the TM8 crew. For later operations with new modules, including a planned Medilab, the Soviets have appointed 12 new specialist cosmo nauts, including doctors, chemists, vets and biologists. No female cosmonauts are currently in training, says General Shatalov, although some are still in the cosmonaut team. According to some Soviet statements, Mir 1 will be complete in 1991 and, soon after, will be replaced by the Energia-launched, 20-crew, Mir 2. In reality, Mir 2 is more of a twinkle in its designers' eyes than actual hardware, and Mir 1 will be around for much of the 1990s, its worn-out modules being replaced by modules flown by Energia and Buran, and possibly by Proton and SL-16, which could not only extend its life but increase its versatility. The 100-ton modules of the Mir 2 complex, connected together, and with Buran and uprated Soyuz ferry vehicles making regular visits delivering crews, may, indeed, one day, take over Mir l's mantle by continuing "the phase of large-scale production" in space and the industriali sation of space. As the USA and other researchers have discovered, however, space industrialisation and commercialisation may be extremely limited, and open only to those that can afford to conduct several years of expensive R&D. The Mirs' progress in the 1990s, therefore, is likely to be much slower than has been predicted. S3 48 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, IS April 1989
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