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| S P E C I A L | Mir: Mission off Course |
New Russian crew heads to Mir for repairs
August 5, 1997
Web posted at: 3:37 p.m. EDT (1937 GMT)
BAIKONUR, Kazakstan (CNN) -- Two Russian cosmonauts were on their way Tuesday to the Russian space station Mir, in a repair mission seen as vital for the future of the Russian space program.
On schedule at 7:36 p.m. Moscow time, flight commander Anatoly Solovyov, 49, and flight engineer Pavel Vinogradov, 43, lifted off in a Soyuz-TM-26 space capsule mounted on a 300-ton booster rocket, in a picture-perfect takeoff.
The importance of the mission was underlined by the presence of an unusually high-ranking Russian delegation at the Baikonur cosmodrome, including Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and Yuri Baturin, secretary of Russian President Boris Yeltsin's Defense Council.
Launch of the Mir repair crew
The two cosmonauts are expected to dock with Mir on Thursday, and the two crews will overlap aboard the station for about a week to exchange information.
The current Russian crew -- commander Vasily Tsibliyev, who suffered temporarily from an irregular heartbeat, and cosmonaut Alexander Lazutkin -- will then return to Earth.
U.S. astronaut Michael Foale will stay on until late September or early October, when he is scheduled to be replaced by astronaut David Wolf.
The new Mir crew will face its first test on August 20, when the first spacewalk into the damaged Spektr module is scheduled.
That module was severely damaged and punctured in June, when an unmanned cargo vessel collided with the 11-year-old Mir station.
The cosmonauts will have to open the airless module and reattach power cables that had to be disconnected after the collision.
The cosmonauts will install a new hatch door for the Spektr module, which will allow electricity from Spektr's solar panels to flow into the rest of the space station, much of which is now without power.
Solovyov said he was "absolutely sure" the crew would be able to restore power, but experts say the operation will be risky because nobody knows how dangerous the environment inside the Spektr module will be.
The Mir station has been running on half power since the June 25 collision.
Experts say Solovyov and Vinogradov are expected to conduct up to six spacewalks inside and outside Mir to assess possible damage.
Tuesday's liftoff came only hours after yet another technical breakdown highlighted the urgency of the repair mission.
Two oxygen generators aboard Mir broke down, and the three-man crew had to use oxygen canisters.
Russian ground control said the crew did not face an emergency situation since there were enough canisters to last about two months.
However, the incident was the latest in a long string of problems plaguing the aging space station.
Russian space experts would like to keep the Mir station operational until 1999.
Should the current mission fail to repair Mir, then it could well spell the end of the Russian space program, because vital Western money flowing into Russia for the Mir program would then likely stop.
Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty, Correspondent John Holliman and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Oxygen generators aboard Mir break down - August 5, 1997
- Cosmonauts get final OK for Mir repair mission - August 4, 1997
- Soyuz rocket on pad for Tuesday Mir repair mission - August 3, 1997
- Too-tiny astronaut bumped from Mir mission - July 31, 1997
- Cosmonaut: Mir crash could have been deadly - July 30, 1997
- New crew to carry out Mir repairs - July 21, 1997
- Mir commander to undergo heart tests - July 20, 1997
- Fresh crew may step in for Mir spacewalk - July 18, 1997
- Mir loses all power after accident - July 17, 1997
- Life in space not so bad, says U.S. astronaut aboard Mir - February 10, 1997
Related sites:
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- American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology
- Russian Space Science Internet
- Russian Space Research Insstitute (IKI)
- NASA Shuttle-Mir Web
- Keith's MIR Page
- ISS Phase I - Space Station Mir
- Russian Space Agency
- MIR Space Station - Maximov Online
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