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| S P E C I A L | Repairing Mir |
Cosmonauts return to Mir after six-hour spacewalk
November 3, 1997
Web posted at: 5:57 a.m. EST (1057 GMT)KOROLYOV, Russia (Reuters) -- Anatoly Solovyov and flight engineer Pavel Vinogradov returned to Russia's Mir space station on Monday after a spacewalk lasting more than six hours.
"We have closed the hatches," Solovyov told Mission Control.
The spacewalk lasted for six hours and four minutes, 34 minutes longer than orginally planned, and the cosmonauts appeared to have done more than expected.
According to Mission Control near Moscow, the cosmonauts have reserves of oxygen that can last up to eight hours, but they should not spend more than six hours in open space.
CNN's John Holliman reports on the spacewalk
Solovyov and Vinogradov dismantled an outdated solar panel on the Kvant scientific module, carried it to the main body of Mir and fastened it outside the station. They also put a plug in a hatch in preparation for the installation of a vacuum device which will help keep the air in Mir clean.
During the sortie, which started two hours later than scheduled due to technical problems with Solovyov's spacesuit, the Russian pair also cut off a part of an old solar panel to be sent to earth for inspection and put into orbit a one-third scale replica of the Soviet Sputnik, the world's first orbiting satellite, which was launched 40 years ago last month.
The model contains electronic devices made by French schoolchildren to issue radio signals like the original.
The space walk by Solovyov and Vinogradov was delayed after ground control realized it was not receiving data transmissions from Solovyov's space suit.
Mission Control decided to press ahead and told commander Solovyov to report verbally on the state of his suit, most importantly air pressure and temperature.
"Generally, it is an unpleasant situation but it is not dangerous," flight director Vladimir Solovyov -- no relation to the commander -- told reporters at the Mission Control center at Korolyov outside Moscow.
Experts at Mission Control said the situation would put extra pressure on the commander but was unlikely to be dangerous.
The aim of the operation was to boost Mir's energy supply, reduced after a collision with a cargo vehicle on June 25, the worst accident in its 11-year history.
Monday's sortie was Vinogradov's third space walk and Solovyov's fourth this mission. NASA astronaut David Wolf, 41, was inside the station and sent a signal to fold up the solar panel before it was taken off and check it had folded up properly.
Last month Vinogradov, 43, and Solovyov, 49, spent several exhausting hours in Mir's punctured and airless Spektr module, linking two solar panels to a new computer guidance system.
Solar panels provide power for the orbiting laboratory, which was reduced to minimal functions after the June accident, leaving little spare energy for experiments being run by Russian, U.S. and other international space agencies.
Problems in the last few months have included malfunctions in the main computer, the energy supply and the oxygen supply. The computer has been replaced and repair work has gradually dealt with the other problems.
Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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Related stories:
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- Mir spacewalk hits snag - October 20, 1997
- Mir spacewalk ends as partial success - October 20, 1997
- U.S. astronaut says he loves Mir - October 16, 1997
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- Leak in Mir may have been located - October 3, 1997
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