Crewmen May Have to Don Spacesuits to Juice Up Mir

Efforts to restore full power to the ailing Mir space station have suffered a new setback that may require cosmonauts to take another spacewalk inside the craft’s punctured research module, Russian officials said Tuesday.

Despite a successful foray into the airless Spektr module last week, Mir’s fix-it crew has been unable to boost the station’s energy supply because they cannot restart a motor inside Spektr. The motor is designed to rotate the module’s solar panels toward the sun for maximum power.

“The power supply that we initially hoped to start getting just isn’t coming,” said Irina V. Manshilina, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Mission Control.

Restoring power to Mir is a crucial part of the mission to repair the station, which was damaged two months ago when an unmanned cargo craft rammed it, rupturing Spektr and cutting off a large portion of the station’s energy supply. The energy shortage has led to frequent problems in generating oxygen aboard the station.

Officials say they hope to know by Friday whether they can start the solar panel motor by remote control or whether cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Anatoly Solovev must don their spacesuits again and reenter Spektr.

“The problem of restarting the motor that rotates the solar panels will be resolved by the end of the week,” predicted Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin. “They have not yet figured out if it is possible to start the motor from Mir, or whether an additional visit to Spektr will be necessary.”

If the motor will not start by remote control, the trip into the depressurized module will have to wait until after a Sept. 3 spacewalk outside the station aimed at finding the holes in the vessel.

Before the June 25 accident, Spektr’s four large solar collectors provided nearly half the station’s power. But when the cargo ship collided with Mir and air began escaping from the module, the crew hurriedly disconnected cables running through the doorway to Spektr and sealed the hatch.

One of the main goals of last week’s venture into Spektr was to reconnect the power cables. Although one of the solar arrays was severely damaged in the collision, Mir could get back to 90% power if the cosmonauts can get the system operating.

The two-month power shortage has forced the crew to shut down electricity in other modules, including one housing the station’s most reliable oxygen generator. To save power during last Friday’s spacewalk, the cosmonauts also had to shut down a similar--but sometimes faulty--oxygen generator and rely on their backup system of igniting oxygen canisters.

But when they tried to restart that oxygen generator Monday, it refused to start. And when they tried to ignite an oxygen canister, the triggering device malfunctioned. The problem prompted the crew to fix both the oxygen generator and the triggering device Monday night.