Disaster. Part of the film that was stored in the refrigerator is lost. Apparently, when they moved it behind a panel, a cable snagged the toggle switch and switched the refrigerator from cooling to drying mode. The heating came on and the temperature rose to +100 degrees C. The whole problem is that switching from “Cool” to “Dry” requires just one flip of a toggle. Not even a closed-lid interlock was provided for the drying mode.

We stayed up until half past one at night preparing for tomorrow’s work. The day is so packed there’s no time to breathe, and everything involves critical operations, but it’s interesting. Starting at 7:30 AM, we began attitude dynamics using the transport ship. We recorded Australia on the video recorder. We worked with Delta modes 81 and 67 for navigation, checking the accuracy of station turns using Sirius. The accuracy turned out to be high, about one degree.

Aboard the orbital station, every now and then you find yourself deep in thought. A “candid camera” shot, photo by A.N. Berezovoy.

Then we began training for landing in the special vacuum Chibis suits, where the reduced pressure partially simulates gravity by drawing blood to the legs. At a pressure reduction of 35 mm, the initial sensation was unpleasant — nausea — but then I got used to it. Home soon — how will they greet us? At work, “home” means your apartment; if you go abroad, “home” means your country; but in space, our home is Earth. Then we ran a test of the X-ray spectrometer and performed alignment calibration of window mounts No. 16 and 13 using the S-2 sextant and the AO-1 astro-orienter installed on them.

And again, a pile of radiograms for tomorrow’s work, this time already including training exercises in the transport ship in preparation for descent. The communication session is short; there’s not even a chance to consult with the descent support system specialists. Tolya is sleeping, and I’ve decided to do some more preparation for the work. A lot has gotten rusty, but my notes on the ship help — I organized them into a special reference panel before the flight.