VBK Raduga

[jcm]

(This probably belongs in Historical, but I see that historical Russian stuff often ends up here instead...)

I've been trying to reconstruct the trajectory of the Raduga VBK
capsule, used in 9 flights between 1990 and 1994 to return cargo from
Mir. The VBK was loaded into the nose of Progress and ejected after the
deorbit burn. Normally Progress ships are deorbited over the South
Pacific but in these cases the reentry was over the former Soviet Union.

Information on the VBK reentry profile is fragmentary and contradictory.
I summarize here the data I have, mostly from Novosti Kosmonavtiki 
magazine and wire service stories. Landing times are cited for all
missions but only three flights have deorbit times. The durations of
(landing - deorbit) are 56, 42 and 24 minutes respectively, and ground
track reconstruction suggests deorbit burn magnitudes of 90, 140 and 400
m/s. This latter case seems like it must be a mistake: the quoted
deorbit time of 1444 UTC is perhaps a error - 1430 UTC would be a more
plausible value and allow a 140 m/s deorbit. The significant difference
between the M-7 and M-14 reentries seems more likely to be real.

Do our Russian friends have more complete data on the VBK flights?
How about VBK article serial numbers?

VBK Progress   Landing Day   ---- All times GMT/UTC ---
    S/N  Flight              Undock Deorbit Eject Land   
1  206   M-5   1990 Nov 28  28/0616  ----    ----  1104     
2  208   M-7   1991 May  7   6/2300  1624   ---- 1720
3  210   M-9   1991 Sep 30  30/0153  ----    ----  0816
4  211   M-10  1992 Jan 20  20/0713  ----    ----  1203
5  209   M-14  1992 Oct 21  21/1646  2230    2256  2312
6  218   M-18  1993 Jul  4   3/1558  ----    1650  1713
7  219   M-19  1993 Oct 13  11/1759  ----    ----  0022 
8  220   M-20  1993 Nov 21  21/0238  ----    ----  0906 
9  223   M-23  1994 Jul  2   2/0847  1444    1456  1509