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| S P E C I A L | Repairing Mir |
Mir crew ready for unprecedented repair mission
August 20, 1997
Web posted at: 8:57 p.m. EDT (0057 GMT)HOUSTON (CNN) -- U.S. space officials said the Russian-American Mir crew was ready to tackle Friday's crucial spacewalk and expressed satisfaction with the status aboard the problem-ridden station.
NASA's acting spacewalk manager Greg Harbaugh said Wednesday that the faulty parts of Mir's main computer had been repaired and that the 10 gyroscopes that stabilize the station had been successfully switched on.
Afternoon Mir Briefing
22 min. 49 sec. VXtreme video
"The batteries are being charged and preparations for the spacewalk are under way," officials said, after the electricity-generating solar panels had been realigned with the sun.
During Wednesday's news conference, NASA gave a preview of the repair mission, which was made necessary after an unmanned cargo vessel collided with the space station in June. The Spektr science module was punctured in the accident, and the station's power supply severely reduced.
The spacewalk was expected to begin about 5:05 a.m. Friday.
NASA said there were three main mission priorities:
- restore power
- reclaim some hardware if possible
- make brief inspection for leak source
Harbaugh said that U.S. astronaut Michael Foale will be in the Soyuz escape module as a precaution in case the crew must evacuate the station quickly, while the two cosmonauts will carry out the repairs.
The cosmonauts will install a new Spektr hatch with electricity nodes, which will allow the flow of electricity through to the plate, Harbaugh said.
The power cables had to be disconnected when the Spektr module was sealed off in the June accident.
Solovyov will make an internal spacewalk into the dark Spektr module. Harbaugh said Solovyov would first check for potentially dangerous material before stepping inside the damaged sector.
Experts said that broken equipment could tear the cosmonauts' spacesuits and that body fluids from the science experiments, like blood and urine, might be floating in the weightless interior.
Harbaugh said that Solovyov would not make an extended search for still usable material. But he added that cosmonauts might indeed find some devices that had not been damaged in the collision and could still be useful for future work.
During the inspection, cosmonauts would also try to find out whether they could pinpoint the hole in the module, even though they were not expected to make an intense search for the leak, Harbaugh said.
The repair mission was expected to last about four hours and 15 minutes, but officials said it could be expanded to seven hours if necessary.
Russian officials repeatedly said they were confident about the upcoming repairs, even though Russian Deputy Mission Control Chief Viktor Blagov said last week that "such work has never been done in the history of space exploration."
· MIR MAIN PAGE · RELATED SITES · HISTORY ·
· TIMELINE · GALLERY · SOYUZ · CREW · REPAIR MISSION ·
- CNN In-Depth: Space
- Video Almanac: 1996 - Mir and Atlantis dock
- Video Almanac: 1986 - Soviets launch Mir
- Message Board: Repairing Mir
Related stories:
- Russian official threatens funding for Mir - August 20, 1997
- Mir crew prepares for risky spacewalk - August 20, 1997
- Spacewalk to repair damaged Mir set for Friday - August 19, 1997
- Crew rights tumbling Mir after main computer fails - August 18, 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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