The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

When Foale suggested using the thrusters on Soyuz to stop the spin, Mission Control gave permission to try. It was difficult to calculate the thruster firings. Tsibliyev:

“When we understood all this, and Michael had made his drawings, it turned out we had to make these very short impulse [firings]. We tried to explain it to the TsUP, but the [comm] passes were so short we couldn’t. So the TsUP said, ‘Okay, guys, you try it, let’s see what happens, because we have to do something.’”

At the end of the communications pass, they were on their own.

“We can do this, Vasily,” Foale urged Tsibliyev. The commander looked skeptical.

They returned to the Soyuz. “Okay, three seconds,” said Foale. “Try it three seconds.”

Tsibliyev pressed the thruster lever three times, quickly.

It didn’t work. Foale, looking out the windows, saw that the solar arrays remained in darkness. Foale asked:

“Vasily, how long did you hold the thruster?”

“I didn’t hold it. I just hit it.” Pop. Pop. Pop.

Foale realized Tsibliyev was being conservative in an effort to save propellant. He said:

“That won’t work, I don’t think. If you just hit it, that’s not pressure enough. We need more than that. You have to actually hold it down for three seconds.”

There were more calculations and another drawing or two before Tsibliyev finally sat and followed Foale’s directions. He nudged the thruster lever for one… two… three seconds – and released.

Foale and Lazutkin studied the rotation and the solar arrays. After a moment they began to smile.

“I think it worked,” Foale said.

The station’s new orientation left Kvant 2 without power. The toilet was in Kvant 2 so they had to use a series of condoms and bags left over from an earlier experiment.

At this point the NASA ground team began to think this was the end of Phase One of the International Space Station project. But the Russians didn’t give up – they had 20 years experience of on-the-spot repairs.

The recovery plan involved charging all the available batteries from the functioning solar panels. The charged batteries would be used to power the base block’s guidance and control systems and then the other modules, the whole process taking two days. TsUP wanted the cosmonauts to put on spacesuits, enter Spektr and jury-rig a power supply there, then they could find and patch the hole which they calculated would be 3cm wide.

During the night of 26–27 June Mir lost all power due to a malfunction of the surge protectors which prevented the batteries from charging. TsUP wanted them to test the gyrodynes which drained the batteries and caused the central computer to crash. They lost all power and the crew had to begin the recovery process all over again.