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| S P E C I A L | Repairing Mir |
U.S. astronaut gets go-ahead for Mir spacewalk
September 4, 1997
Web posted at: 5:23 p.m. EDT (2123 GMT)HOUSTON (CNN) -- U.S. astronaut Michael Foale will participate in Friday's spacewalk to assess external damage to the Mir space station, NASA officials announced Thursday.
Watch the NASA news conference
Foale will perform the six-hour mission along with cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyov, the world's most experienced spacewalker. The two will venture out of Mir shortly before 9 p.m. EDT Friday to inspect and photograph damage to Mir's Spektr module caused by a June collision with a cargo ship.
It will be the first time crew members have conducted an exterior spacewalk since the collision.
"We are well satisfied that they're prepared to do this, that it's a safe thing to do," said Greg Harbaugh, an astronaut managing NASA's spacewalk projects office.
The astronauts have been rehearsing for the walk in Russian spacesuits for weeks. On Thursday, the two Russians and one American aboard Mir made final preparations before resting up for the grueling walk.
Frank Culbertson, NASA's Shuttle-Mir program manager, described the mission as "moderately risky."
"It's not very complicated, but it has some very specific objectives and some hazards associated with it we had to address," he told reporters at an afternoon news conference.
The spacewalk originally was scheduled for Wednesday, but mission control decided that more time was needed for practice. Foale took his only spacewalk to date in February 1995 aboard the space shuttle.
Russian vote of confidence
Foale's rare assignment amounts to a vote of confidence by both sides in their partnership seemingly strengthened by a summer of shared crises on the banged-up space station.
But Foale won't be the first American to perform a spacewalk outside Mir. Jerry Linenger gathered cosmic dust samples and installed a radiation meter with Vasily Tsibliyev in April on the first U.S.-Russian spacewalk.
Friday's mission is expected to be the first in a series of spacewalks needed to spot and patch holes in Spektr.
"We don't know yet, of course, what the holes look like and what repair procedures might be in the future. But this is the first step in trying to gain that understanding," Culbertson said.
He added that even if astronauts carry out future repairs, "there is no guarantee that we would ever be able to recover the Spektr module itself."
Solovyov and Mir's engineer, Pavel Vinogradov, failed to discover any punctures during last month's spacewalk inside the Spektr, but they succeeded in reconnecting power cables that have helped restore some of Mir's energy supply.
· 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:
- Former Russian Mir crew may be fined for June collision - September 2, 1997
- Mir crew prepares for external spacewalk - September 1, 1997
- Mir crew takes well-earned rest - August 23, 1997
- Mir plugged in again - August 22, 1997
Related sites:
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- Oxygen candles from NASA's Mir pages
- American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology
- Russian Space Science Internet
- Russian Space Research Institute (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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