Word: solarity
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...immediate goal of Friday's fix-it call was to install a new hatch on Spektr--one equipped with a cable assembly that would let the crew tap electrical power from the lab's solar panels while keeping the module sealed off from the rest of the station. Before the walk got started, NASA's Greg Harbaugh, who helped plan the exercise, played down its difficulty, brushing off news reports calling it the most dangerous EVA ever. "I don't think they get much easier," he said...
Even before Vinogradov finished, the space station's solar panels apparently caught a shaft of sunlight, and power began flowing to the blacked-out lab, causing it to stir to life. "I can see fans spinning and pumps working," he called out. "You're giving us really good news," a controller said, laughing. "Russian equipment works even in a total vacuum...
WASHINGTON, D.C.: After combing over a year's worth of data from the Solar Heliospheric Observatory satellite, NASA today unveils startling photos that may help scientists unravel some of the sun's most perplexing mysteries. Among the satellite's more intriguing revelations: pictures that may help astronomers predict solar storms, which disrupt satellite communications and blow out power grids on earth...
...TIME science correspondent Dick Thompson explains: "With the help of SOHO, scientists may now have a handle on when and where solar storms will occur. The end result is that satellites, power stations and astronauts can be better warned and protected." Budget concerns, however, may force NASA to pull the plug on the satellite. Thompson says they couldn't have picked a worse time to flick the switch: The sun is about to go into solar maximum, its most violent period ? and the most scientifically useful...
...With the embattled space station's life support running on reserve power, first on that list will be the gyroscopic systems which keep Mir's solar panels correctly aligned with the sun ? and its batteries charging. And with tests on the newly-repaired computer draining power rapidly, Michael Foale and the two cosmonauts aboard are anxious to get those gyrodines clicking and whirring again. When full alignment is restored, the Russian arrivals can get to what they came to do: get out to the Spektr and reconnect the power lines that could make the Mir almost whole again. That spacewalk...