Dec 14 1985
From The Space Library
Soviet scientists from the Interkosmos Institute in Moscow together with scientists from the European Space Agency (ESA), the Universities of Utrecht (Netherlands), Birmingham (Great Britain), and Tuebingen and the Max Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics in Garching, West Germany were planning to launch in spring 1986 an observatory to investigate X-rays in space, the magazine Geo reported. The observatory would carry four instruments intended to investigate the X-ray stars of the Milky Way, the remnants of dying stars (supernova), and nuclei of other active galaxies. They called the project “Salyut-Hexe,” in which Salyut referred to the Soviet space station and Hexe to the English abbreviation for high-energy X-ray experiment.
The magazine noted that Dr. Claus Reppin of the Max Planck Institute said it was not clear whether the observatory would be coupled to the existing Soviet Salyut 7 space station or to a new space station, Salyut 8. Reppin confirmed that the German scientists would not, for reasons of secrecy, be present at the installation and assembly of the instruments. Soviet scientists had spent two weeks in West Germany to familiarize themselves with the instruments so that they would be able to assemble and install them. Reppin also said the West European scientists did not know whether they could be present at the launch, which would probably be at Baykonur, but he indicated it was probably more important that they be at the ground control center in or near Moscow by a few days after launch, when measuring instruments would begin operation.
The experiment, the magazine added, was part of the Soviet effort to set up a permanently inhabited large space station. At the beginning of 1986, the Soviets planned to launch the new station with several coupling connections for attachment of various modules. In this way, a settlement in space would grow gradually according to a building block principle; up to 30 cosmonauts were in training to serve as crew on the new station. (FBIS, Hamburg DPA in German, Dec 14/85)
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