Word: stationed
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Foale did what he always hoped he would do in this situation: he forced himself to stand absolutely still. If the station's wound was a mortal one, the atmosphere inside would gush out of the ship, and Foale's ears would pop suddenly and painfully. If that happened, the pain would probably be one of the last things he would ever feel, as rapid depressurization would kill the crew almost instantly...
Within 30 minutes, all three men were back in the main module. With Spektr sealed and the station repressurized, they had time to assess just how much ship they had left. It did not look like much. Mir had lost all the power that once flowed from the Spektr's solar panels. Worse, the other panels on the ship were also out of commission. The collision had knocked the station into a slow roll, tipping its huge, energy-producing wings out of alignment with the sun. Unless the ship got realigned, it couldn't produce power. And unless the ship...
...ground, this was good news. One degree was a small enough drift for mission control to correct remotely. Bypassing Mir's unconscious computer system, the controllers sent up a command instructing the station's engines to light. An instant later they did, and the groaning old spaceliner came slowly to a stop...
JUNE 25, EARLY EVENING To Foale, there was nothing more perversely beautiful than a dead spacecraft. It had been two orbits since mission control had stabilized Mir, but while controllers had been able to stop the station's rotation, they hadn't been able to point it toward anything useful. With the solar panels still in shadow, the cabin lights and instrument panels went dead, and the fans and pumps that gave the spacecraft the atmosphere of a low-decibel boiler room fell silent. Huddling together in the main module, Tsibliyev, Lazutkin and Foale spent a few serene hours watching...
...this kind of peace was not unlike the rapture that seizes the snowbound before they freeze to death. If the Mir crew members were going to save their station and perhaps themselves, they would have to get moving fast. Though the thrusters on Mir were powerless to make the sweeping maneuver necessary to orient the solar panels, the thrusters on the Soyuz might not be. Like a pickup truck pushing a tractor trailer, the little lifeboat just might be able to nudge the mammoth Mir far enough for its panels to catch a shaft of sunlight...