It’s hard. Mood is bad.

Today we performed the docking with the cargo ship “Progress-14,” or more precisely, we observed it, since we only issue a few commands to activate the approach mode on the station, and then everything proceeds automatically. Our task is only at the moment of close-range berthing — if it’s going off-nominally, to ensure safety by steering the station away from the ship. Watching the docking, you no longer think about how complex this is, as if the road from Earth to the “Salyut-7” orbital complex has become well-traveled. But when you imagine everything behind it, you understand that this is the success of enormous work by a great many people from various organizations. And it’s performed brilliantly — not the slightest glitch — while Tolya and I serve only as observers. I filmed the docking with the movie camera.

There was an interesting phenomenon at 14:24:50. On the TV camera screen we were using to watch the cargo ship’s approach, a white spot about 10 millimeters in diameter crossed at a decent speed, roughly one degree per second. Grabbing the movie camera, I rushed to the porthole of the transfer compartment, but against the background of stars I saw only the lights of the approaching ship, faintly lit by the low Sun, and nothing else. After docking, we reported this to the flight director. A mystery. There’s your flying saucer.

Later we figured out what it was by comparing the times. At that moment we were crossing the terminator, and the Sun was rising above the horizon. A small shiny piece of thermal shielding — many of which flake off in vacuum — had floated through the field of view near the TV camera and produced a reflected glint. That’s how we got the glowing spot and the high angular velocity, due to the short distance.

Only two months into the flight. We’re eagerly awaiting tomorrow — opening the cargo ship’s hatch. Each cargo ship is like a milestone for us, a kind of summing-up. “Progress-13” marked the preparatory work for the Soviet-French program. With it came the equipment: “Piramig,” PSN, “Echograph,” “Poza.”

Now it’s “Progress-14,” the next stage — about 200 items of new equipment: “Korund,” “Magma-Kristall,” EFO, and so on, and therefore new work. We’re glad about it. At the same time, this is a resupply of consumable materials — food, water, fuel, clothing.

In the Southern Hemisphere over Antarctica I watched the aurora. It’s a true spectacle of light — billowing clusters of radiance spreading across the horizon, fountains of white-greenish-crimson streams stretching toward the stars, surrounding the station, while we fly in the Earth’s shadow through these jungles of light in the silent stillness of space.