MirNews No. 495 – 17 Mar 2001

These days an enormous stream of information about the last days of the MIR-space station is reaching us from several sites on Internet. A part of that information coincides or is equal to what I myself can gather from some reliable sources.

All this information does not refer to one of the weakest points in this period: the functioning of the Telemetry and Tele command channels from and to the MIR-complex and the Progress-M1-5.

So during every pass within my range I monitor the telemetry channels to be sure that the Russians still can rely upon this Achilles’ heel of the de-orbit operation.

Thus far, that is to say up to and including the pass in orbit 86237 1125-1133UTC on 17.03.2001, I monitored the MIR telemetry via the channels 638.091 and 637.837 mc and during a number of passes last week also the Progress-M1-5 channels on 166.125 and 165.875 mc.

It goes without saying that I will continue to check these channels until the reentry of the space station

.

In the undesired case I will meet full radio silence on these channels, I will inform you in another MIRNEWS-report.

Chris van den Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202