A day of preparation for the experiment on deploying non-rigid structures simulating elements of solar arrays, large radio telescopes, and so on, installed on the cargo ship.

Our task, after it undocks from the station on the ground’s command, is to capture the entire deployment process on film while simultaneously transmitting a television image to the ground and commenting on the deployment as it happens. So right now there’s a lot of work with documentation and film, photo, and television equipment. Then, through the airlock chamber, we jettisoned a waste container and tried to measure the parameters of its motion using a laser rangefinder, to practice the methodology of manual rendezvous using it. But this didn’t always work due to the small angular size of the target.

Today I observed a classic ring structure on the red-brown surface not far from the coast of southwestern Africa, about 100 km in diameter. The ring is outlined by dark rock. You can clearly see it’s an old volcano with oval crater edges. I looked at the Marquesas Islands — nothing impressive. Scattered little islands in the desolate boundless ocean. Their loneliness even inspired sympathy for those who live on them. Some aren’t visible at all, hidden by clouds.

I admired the Amazon. This picture is impressive. An enormous light-brown river, like the vital artery of a vast continent.

I was intrigued by the place where the Rio Blanco flows into the Amazon, and nearby — an unusual city. During the day it sparkled, shimmering and playing with a kaleidoscope of light reflections, like the facets of a New Year’s mirror ball in the colored light of stage lamps. At first I didn’t understand what caused this. Then I realized it was the play of the Sun’s oblique rays in the windows of buildings, which reflected a multitude of colored glints. I must say that South America is very beautiful: its enormous agricultural fields are like carpets of different hues, from burgundy to light green. Many folds of different rock types. Mountain plateaus of brown, dun, and light tones reminiscent of the texture of red granite, whose veins have been magnified hundreds of times over. A good day.