USA/SPACE: MIR SPACE STATION CREW PREPARE FOR REPAIR MISSION

Описание: (20 Aug 1997) English/Nat

The Russian-American crew aboard the Mir space station is preparing for one of the most dangerous repair missions in space history.

But NASA officials say they are confident all precautions have been taken to ensure the mission's success.

There have been continuing glitches on the Mir space station -- the latest being a computer malfunction Monday knocking out the orientation system.

But both Russian and American space agency officials sounded confident about the space walk.

Russian officials are determined to keep the aging space outpost flying into the 21st century despite a series of accidents and malfunctions that include a collision with a cargo ship in June.

At the briefing in Houston, space walk specialist Greg Harbough, said the EVA had been given close scrutiny by American scientists.

SOUNDBITE (English):
"Its fairly straight forward - this is a relatively benign IVA - EVA. Nevertheless we gave it we think good close scrutiny and have enjoyed a great deal of cooperation and effective communication between our folks and the Russians to come to a proper understanding of how they plan to execute."
SUPER CAPTION: Greg Harbough, Acting Manager, EVA Projects Office, Johnson Space Center

The internal space walk will start with all three crew members in the Mir transfer node. The hatches will be opened between the node and Soyuz.

American astronaut Mike Foale will enter the orbital section of the Soyuz and close to the node, while the two cosmonauts begin decompression.

Foale will then enter the descent section of the Soyuz and close the hatch to the orbital mode - allowing the two cosmonauts to enter the orbital section if they need an emergency escape from the node.

The primary function of the space walk will to be connect cables to route power to the rest of the Mir space station through a redesigned hatch.

SOUNDBITE (English):
"There are several objectives to this EVA. First and foremost is to restore power from the Spektr. Second objective is to reclaim some of the hardware that is in the Spektr. The third objective is to do a brief inspection inside the Spektr for the potential leak source."
SUPER CAPTION: Greg Harbough, Acting Manager, EVA Projects Office, Johnson Space Center

The Russian cosmonauts don't know what they will encounter when they open the hatch into the darkened module. The module was rammed by a cargo ship on June 25, puncturing its hull and knocking out much of Mir's power.

The Spektr module housed dozens of experiments, now probably ruined by the impact.

Broken equipment could tear the cosmonauts' spacesuits. Body fluids from the experiments - like blood and urine - may be floating in the weightless interior and nobody is sure what the potential dangers are.

Mir commander Anatoly Solovyov and flight engineer Pavel Vinogradov trained extensively for the Spektr repair mission before arriving at the station earlier this month.

The 11-year-old Mir is the jewel of Russia's once-mighty manned space programme, which launched the first satellite and the first man into space.

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