Word: stationed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That's what the U.S. is starting to wonder as well. Joint operations aboard Mir were originally designed to give American astronauts space-station experience prior to the launch of a new international space station in 1998 and to keep the Russians engaged in a high-profile cooperative project. But a series of mishaps on the creaky, 11-year-old Mir over the past six months has raised questions about the station's safety, threatening to send space cooperation into what may turn out to be an uncontrolled spin of its own. Some U.S. legislators, reflecting widespread public exasperation, want...
...nearly $100 million a year selling rides aboard Mir to the U.S., as well as a blow to the Kremlin's prestige. So far, though, NASA has no such plan. And for the moment, the Russians have more immediate concerns. Last month's crash poked a hole in the station's Spektr module, forcing the crew to disconnect power cables so they could isolate the now airless Spektr from the rest...
Without Spektr's solar panels, the space station has been limping along at half power--a situation that, if unremedied, would make it impossible to keep Mir operating as a research station. Rather than abandon Mir, the Russians worked out a way the crew could fix it: Tsibliyev and fellow cosmonaut Alexander Lazutkin would put on space suits and take an "internal eva"--an indoor space walk--to reattach the cables. The power lines would then be passed through a replacement hatch that was sent up aboard a supply rocket earlier this month...
Star-crossed is too melodramatic a term for Colonel Vasily Tsibliyev, Mir's commander. Stressed out is probably more like it. Like the Mir spacecraft itself, Tsibliyev is worn down and in danger of falling apart. He has been aboard the aging space station since February and has had to cope with nonstop crises: a fire, breakdowns in oxygen and cooling systems, a collision with a cargo ship and last week a power failure. No wonder he's suffering from an irregular heartbeat and taking sedatives...
...make things worse, the Russian media have been pointing fingers at him as the cause of some of the accidents, and one of his bosses has labeled him a chronic complainer. Tsibliyev was guiding the cargo ship on June 25, when it bashed into the station's Spektr module, and some Russian commentators say he may have created the problem by entering the wrong numbers into a computer. At one point last week, ABC News reported that it was Tsibliyev who yanked the wrong plug and cut off the station's power. Mir flight director Vladimir Solovyov would...