I picked up these excerpts from spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov, in hot topics. Cheers. --- MISSION CONTROL CENTER STS-63 Status Report #4 Saturday, February 4, 1995, 4:30 p.m. CST Space shuttle Discovery continues to close in on the Mir space station in anticipation of a planned rendezvous between the two orbiting spacecraft on Monday morning. On the ground, flight controllers are assessing plans for up-close maneuvers with Mir after a forward reaction control system thruster on Discovery began leaking during a hot fire test earlier today. The thruster's oxidizer supply line has been closed and Discovery has been maneuvered to a nose-toward-the-sun attitude to warm the thruster. Flight controllers report they are seeing a gradual increase in temperature on the forward jet. Discovery currently is approximately 4,000 nautical miles behind Mir, closing that distance by about 190 nautical miles per orbit. The six astronauts on board Discovery spent a successful Flight Day 2 on orbit using the shuttle's robot arm to lift the SPARTAN-204 satellite from the cargo bay shortly after midnight for several hours studying the shuttle glow phenomenon and shuttle steering jet firings. Crew members also observed the successful deployment of several spheres and poles of varying sizes that will be used to calibrate orbital debris-tracking radars on the Earth. --- MISSION CONTROL CENTER STS-63 Status Report #5 Sunday, February 5, 1995, 10 a.m. CST Flight control teams in Houston and Kaliningrad, Russia, are busy putting the final touches on plans for Monday's rendezvous of the Space Shuttle Discovery and the Space Station Mir. Discovery is expected to catch up with the Russian space station Monday morning, but mission managers are still discussing how close the orbiter will come to the Mir. The original plan calls for Discovery to come within 33 feet of the Mir complex, but because of a leaking steering thruster, controllers also are looking at back-up plans for having the shuttle fly around Mir at a distance of 400 feet. Mission managers in both countries are continuing to work toward a consensus. In an attempt to stop the leak, Commander Jim Wetherbee and Pilot Eileen Collins closed and reopened the manifold of the leaky thruster several times. The same procedure was used to clear a leak in a thruster on the nose of the orbiter earlier in the day, but the procedure was not as successful for this one. The crew will attempt to stop the leak one more time later today. Discovery, which is in a 200 by 182 nautical mile orbit, is less than 2,000 nautical miles behind Mir and is closing that distance by about 190 nautical miles per orbit. --end--