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| S P E C I A L | Repairing Mir |
Mir gets an upgrade
Solar panel attached in six-hour spacewalk
November 6, 1997
Web posted at: 3:42 a.m. EST (0842 GMT)MOSCOW (CNN) -- Mir's slow recovery continued Thursday morning as cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Anatoly Solovyev added a solar panel to the space station's Kvant 2 module. The panel replaces one the cosmonauts removed Monday morning.
Controllers stopped the clock at 9:36 a.m. Moscow time (0636 GMT) to mark the end of the six-hour spacewalk, which lasted 47 minutes longer than originally planned.
Almost five hours into their work, the cosmonauts announced that the panel was in place. The panel unfolded about halfway when NASA astronaut David Wolfe, inside Mir, hit the controls.
CNN's John Holliman reviews the recent spacewalks
2 min. VXtreme video
After several more tries, and the cosmonauts helping open the panel manually, it finally opened fully.
Russian space officials said they would not know if the new panel was operating properly until later Thursday or possibly Friday.
If the new panel works, it will complete repairs to the station's power supply system after months of difficulty. Eight panels will be working normally while a ninth continues to operate at less than full capacity. Another was damaged beyond repair in June when an unmanned cargo ship collided with the station during docking.
That accident knocked out four solar panels -- cutting the Mir's power supply by almost half -- and the crew has been working steadily since to restore energy levels.
The station has had enough energy to carry out normal flight since the first successful repairs in August, but Russian space officials say more power is needed to resume regular scientific experiments.
Leaking hatch remains a mystery
As the crew exited the station, they noticed an unidentified powdery, salt-like residue on the outer hatch of the docking chamber, which failed to close properly after Monday's spacewalk. Because the docking chamber is sealed off from the rest of the station, the air pressure on the rest of Mir was not affected.
When they returned from Thursday's spacewalk, the cosmonauts secured the latch with clamps in hopes of getting an airtight seal. There was no immediate word on whether or not they were successful.
The 49-year-old Solovyev is the world's most experienced spacewalker. This latest walk is his fourth since arriving at the station in August, and his 14th overall. Vinogradov is on his first Mir flight and will be making his fourth spacewalk.
"It's clear that (Solovyov) has done this kind of work before," said Wolf, videotaping the spacewalk through a window.
Correspondent John Holliman and the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Related stories:
- Cosmonauts back in space to replace Mir solar panel - November 5, 1997
- Mir spacewalk goes smoothly - November 3, 1997
- Mir spacewalk ends as partial success - October 20, 1997
- U.S. astronaut says he loves Mir - October 16, 1997
- Mir's troubles overshadow plans for new station - October 13, 1997
- NASA names next Mir astronaut - October 10, 1997
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