Business Notes DEALS

Sometime next year, when the Soviets launch one of their Proton rockets toward their space station Mir, a pharmaceutical experiment on board could mark a new cooperative era in space. The package, a crystal-growing project, will be the first commercial payload put into orbit for a U.S. company by the Soviets. Glavkosmos, the Soviet civilian space agency, has agreed to conduct several such experiments aboard Mir under a contract with Payload Systems, a Wellesley, Mass., consulting firm. American firms that want to explore low- gravity manufacturing and other space-based technologies are turning to the Soviets because the U.S. shuttle program has been grounded since the Challenger disaster in 1986.