Sputnik 99

Launch data:

Mission details:

• On the Mir orbital station, Viktor Afanasev and Jean-Pierre Haignere made a spacewalk on Apr 16, 1999 for 6h 19m during which Haignere launched by hand the Sputnik 99 amateur radio satellite. The satellite (also called RS 19) was delivered by Progress-M 41 in April; apparently the backup Sputnik-40 is still stored on the station. The satellite deployment was probably around 10:30 UTC.
• Sputnik 99 is at the center of a controversy over use of the amateur radio band. The satellite was developed by AMSAT-F and AMSAT-R the French and Russian amateur radio satellite groups, with help from the Russian Space Agency's flight control center TsUP. Apparently TsUP made the mistake of arranging with Swatch, a commercial company for messages to be broadcast from the satellite including a trademarked advertising slogan, a flagrant misuse of the amateur radio band. After numerous protests, it was decided before launch that the satellite was deployed without being switched on, turning it into a passive piece of junk.
• Sputnik 99 was originally catalogued as being a "new launch" by USSPACECOM and incorrectly assigned the international designer "1999-021A".