Word: vinogradov
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Last Friday Spektr flickered back to life. In a superbly executed internal space walk, Mir's new commander, Anatoli Solovyev, and his flight engineer, Pavel Vinogradov, floated into the airless lab and installed a new cable system that will provide electricity to Spektr and the rest of the power-thirsty station. "This is a super day," exulted NASA astronaut Michael Foale, who waited out the space walk inside Mir's Soyuz re-entry vehicle, the crew's lifeboat in case they had to abandon ship. "Well done, everybody...
...exactly. Shortly after Solovyev and Vinogradov donned their spacesuits and depressurized an airlock adjacent to Spektr in preparation for opening the airless lab's hatch, Vinogradov's left glove began leaking air. At first the cosmonauts were unconcerned, and a ground controller even joked as Vinogradov struggled to adjust his suit. "Pull it with all your proletarian force," he instructed...
...minutes slipped by--and air hissed from Vinogradov's limited supply--the leak stopped being a laughing matter, since a spacesuit rupture in a vacuum can be instantly fatal. Ultimately, Mission Control ordered the airlock repressurized and told the crew to scrounge up another glove and start all over...
...hear the sound of a living module," said Pavel Vinogradov excitedly after plugging in the final power cable in Spektr this morning. Just as audible was the sigh of relief from the Russian Space Agency. After enduring two last minute glitches which almost nixed the highly risky repair mission ? not to mention three months in which Mir became a byword for malfunction ? the station is close to being fully functional again. To be precise, 80 percent of power will most likely be restored...
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...