Word: solovyev
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...repairmen ever had so much riding on a service call as the two cosmonauts dispatched last week to fix Russia's crippled Mir space station. Commander Anatoli Solovyev, 49, and engineer Pavel Vinogradov, 43, must not only restore the station as a working orbital laboratory but also reassure their U.S. partners that Mir is safe enough to let Americans continue visiting...
...Solovyev, a veteran of four missions to Mir, and Vinogradov, a space rookie, are slated to begin undoing the damage next week with a tricky "internal" space walk. Though they've rehearsed the zero-G procedure in water tanks, they could face unexpected problems when they open Spektr's hatch--from, say, sharp-edged shards of metal and glass floating in the module since the rapid depressurization...
After they install a new hatch that was flown to Mir last month, Solovyev will squeeze into Spektr to look for the cables from its solar panels so they can be reconnected to the Mir power system. But it will be a hunt in the dark, with the only light coming from a miner's type lamp on Solovyev's helmet and a flashlight held by Vinogradov in the airlock behind...
Even if all this succeeds, Spektr can't be used until the cosmonauts patch up the damage to its skin. On Sept. 3 Solovyev and Vinogradov are booked for a second walk--this one outside Mir--during which they'll crawl around the module looking for any punctures, which they hope to seal with rubbery "hermetic patches." Spektr can then be repressurized...
...space aboard a Soyuz capsule to begin a three-month stay on Mir--a record sojourn for an American, though nearly a year short of the Russian record. The current mission is, among other things, a ticket home for Thagard and his two Russian companions on Mir; in exchange, Solovyev and Budarin will stay in orbit to maintain Mir's nine-year record of continuous habitation when Atlantis returns to earth this week...