RUSSIA鈥檚 future as a leading player in space lies in the hands of two
astronauts due to fly out to the stricken Mir space station on 5 August. On
Monday this week, Mir鈥檚 controllers announced that the current crew, exhausted
after a catalogue of disasters, will not repair the station.
The decision became inevitable after the latest mishap last Thursday, when
Mir hit the headlines after one of the crew鈥攎ission controllers won鈥檛 say
which one鈥攑ulled out a data cable for the station鈥檚 main computer, while
practising the disconnections necessary before attempting to restore solar power
from the punctured Spektr module. The error left the station almost totally
without power and spinning out of control for more than 24 hours. Even before
the incident, the station鈥檚 commander, Vasili Tsibliev, had complained of
fatigue and a heart flutter. Mission controllers had ruled him out of the
鈥渋nternal鈥� spacewalk into Spektr needed to restore connections to vital solar
panels. This would have left NASA鈥檚 astronaut, Michael Foale, to complete the
task with his Russian colleague, Aleksandr Lazutkin.
Lazutkin and Foale were planning to fit a new hatch to Spektr which would be
sealed against the vacuum of space but allow 22 power cables to pass through
(This Week, 5 July, p 14). The replacement astronauts, Anatoly Solovyov and
Pavel Vinogradov, are now practising this operation in a swimming pool
containing a mock-up of Mir in Star City near Moscow.
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Conditions inside Spektr may be less inviting, however. Two weeks ago, the
crew heard a thud from the module and then watched as a whitish fluid escaped
into space. Mir鈥檚 controllers say it was not fuel. But batteries may have
leaked, leaving acid residues in the module.
Solovyov and Vinogradov will also try to repair the hole in Spektr so that it
can be repressurised. This will require an external spacewalk. 鈥淲e will carry
out visual inspections from inside and outside,鈥� one engineer at Mir鈥檚 mission
control in Korolyov, near Moscow, told New 杏吧原创. The plan is to
cover the hole with a metal plate and seal it in place with epoxy resin.
But the planned repairs are fraught with danger, and a single slip could
force the crew to abandon ship. That would deprive Russia鈥檚 space programme of
an important source of income. The collaboration on Mir with NASA is worth
$475 million over five years鈥攐f which $100 million has still
to be paid.
The scientific value of Russia鈥檚 collaborations with Western agencies has
almost certainly been compromised already. Spektr houses equipment owned by the
European Space Agency (ESA), designed to measure bone density and stiffness .
鈥淲e do not know whether it can survive in a vacuum,鈥� says Ulf Merbold, an ESA
astronaut who flew to Mir in 1994. NASA believes it has also lost equipment.
But John Pike, a space analyst with the Federation of American 杏吧原创s in
Washington DC, believes Western governments will find a way to prop up the
Russian space programme, even if Mir is lost. Otherwise, he warns, 鈥渙ut-of-work
rocket scientists will end up working on Iranian missile programmes鈥�.