Two Russian cosmonauts and an American circled the crippled Mir space station in a Soyuz escape capsule for 45 minutes yesterday, filming the exterior in preparation for risky repair work.
Mission Control officials said Cmdr Anatoly Solovyov guided the Soyuz manually back to Mir after the British-born NASA physicist, Dr Michael Foale, filmed the station, which was seriously damaged in an accident on June 25th.
"We've touched gently," Cmdr Solovyov said in a radio link-up, to the evident relief of all at Korolyov Mission Control just outside Moscow.
The three men, including flight engineer Pavel Vinogradov, reb oarded Mir about one hour later after redocking at 3:13 p.m. (Irish time).
The new crew is preparing to fix damage done when Mir collided with its cargo ship while redocking in June. The accident was the worst mishap in the craft's 11 years in orbit.
The Soyuz undocked on one side of Mir yesterday and redocked on the opposite side near the Spektr module which was punctured during the June collision.
Redocking near the Spektr means the cosmonauts will be able to make a quick escape if anything goes wrong during the repairs, which will include sealing the Spektr.
Cmdr Solovyov told reporters at Mission Control that Dr Foale had not immediately spotted any holes in Spektr, although the pictures will come under closer scrutiny by specialists on Earth.
"At first glance there were no tears or cracks in Spektr but Michael said there were some very interesting pictures," the flight director said.
The previous commander, Mr Vasily Tsibliyev, and flight engineer Mr Alexander Lazutkin returned safely to earth on Thursday after enduring one of the most gruelling six month periods in the history of human space flight.
The new crew enjoyed a change of luck on Thursday when they repaired the main Elektron oxygen generating system just as the old crew shut the hatch on their Soyuz capsule, officials said.
The Spektr is now sealed off from the rest of the station. The two cosmonauts will open the hatch next Wednesday to reattach cables linked to Spektr's solar panels to restore the ship's energy system.
To prepare for yesterday's Soyuz trip, the crew shut off the oxygen system they had worked so hard to repair. "We turned it on yesterday evening and it worked fine until this morning, and we have turned it off for two reasons," Mr Yuri Antoshechkin, head of Mission Control's analysis team, said.
"One, to lower energy demands on the station during the undocking today. And second, because it can only be turned off by the crew, and in case that, knock on wood the undocking fails, then we couldn't turn it off later."
All three crew members were packed into the Soyuz for yesterday's flight because space officials do not want to leave anyone on Mir without an emergency escape vehicle.
Tomorrow Mir will redock with its old Progress resupply ship, the very procedure that caused the June accident. This time the crew expects to do the operation on automatic pilot.