The crew of the Mir space station yesterday managed to repair the main computer whose failure had caused the craft to lose its orientation and spin chaotically in orbit. "The work is completed, the computer is assembled. . . The first checks gave a positive result," Mr Viktor Blagov, deputy flight director at Mission Control outside Moscow, told a news conference.
But he added that further tests would be necessary before the crew could be completely sure it was functioning as normal.
Mission Control officials said that Mir's latest computer failure, which occurred on Sunday, was similar to one last week.
Then the cosmonauts - Comdr Anatoly Solovyov, the NASA physicist, Dr Michael Foale, and the flight engineer, Mr Pavel Vinogradov - fixed the computer in about 24 hours, but this time it has taken longer to identify and tackle the problem.
A Mission Control spokesman said by telephone the computer would be reloaded during the night and one of the crew would have to stay up through the night to do the job. "We expect that it will take more time than usual," he said.
Mission Control said a replacement computer and system parts were now in stock on Mir. A completely new computer would be sent up with a Progress cargo ship to be launched in October.
Mr Blagov said the cash problems of Russia's space industry could be behind the malfunctions. "The main computer was made up of two computers back in 1995. We have not done it as a result of good life," Mr Blagov said, clearly referring to a chronic lack of funds.
Mr Blagov also said high humidity and temperature, as well as bad storage conditions for some spare computer parts, may have triggered the computer crash this time.