The crew of Russia's ailing Mir space station cleared the way yesterday for vital repairs by realigning the craft to soak up energy from the sun without using fuel, mission control officials said. The Mir began spinning on Monday when its main computer failed, preventing its solar panels from efficiently gathering energy to power the 11-year-old station.
Yesterday the two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut on board succeeded in starting all Mir's working gyrodynes - gyroscopic devices which automatically orient the station to face the sun so that its solar panels can produce energy.
"They have put 10 gyrodynes into action," said mission control spokesman Mr Valery Lyndin.
The crew managed to re-establish its orientation towards the sun late on Tuesday using booster rockets, a process requiring precious fuel. Earlier that day they replaced a faulty data processing unit in their computer, halting a 24-hour tumble through space.
Monday's computer breakdown during a docking procedure between Mir and a Progress cargo ship had prompted the station to switch off all but vital life-support systems.
The success in reorientating Mir has cleared the way for space officials to schedule a risky repair to the damaged Spektr module for tomorrow morning, officials said.
Mir has run on partial power since Spektr was punctured after colliding with a cargo ship on June 25th. During the repair, cosmonauts will open the hatch into the darkened, depressurised Spektr and attempt to attach cables leading to its solar panels.
If the operation succeeds, the crew will be able to return power to many areas of the station shut down since June 25th to save energy.
Cosmonauts have already repowered the Elektron oxygen system and other devices previously closed down. Space officials scheduled a day of rest for the crew today ahead of the Spektr repairs.
Meanwhile, in Washington, US officials were discussing whether to keep sending astronauts to the troubled Russian craft.
"There's almost a constant, almost hourly conversation on Mir," Mr Jeff Smith, a spokesman for the White House science adviser, Mr Jack Gibbons, said. "Gibbons is doing daily memos to the President, sometimes twice a day."
Mr Gibbons and members of Vice-President Al Gore's staff were briefed on the shuttle-Mir program yesterday in a previously scheduled meeting. Mr Smith said an intensive, frequent dialogue on the safety issue was continuing.
A US astronaut, Mr David Wolf, is scheduled to blast off for Mir on September 25th aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, but whether he will actually embark on the station is still being debated.
Three separate US inquiries into safety aboard Mir are proceeding, according to Mr Michael Braukus of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
A former astronaut who worked on the US-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975 and later became chief at NASA, Admiral Richard Truly, has meanwhile voiced deep concern about Mir.
"I have been increasingly concerned about our involvement and the safety of the craft," Admiral Truly said from Golden, Colorado, where he directs the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
"I can say that a fire aboard a spacecraft is not a yellow flag, that's a red flag," Admiral Truly said. "A problem with oxygen generation is not a yellow flag, it's a red flag. The crash of an unmanned vehicle into a space station is not a yellow flag, it's a red flag."