The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

By 28 June the batteries had recharged sufficiently to return powertomostofbaseblock. Therestofthe stationwould staydark until the four big solar arrays on Spektr could be reconnected. Foale improvised a movie theatre using a computer monitor and a video player, and they watched the film Apollo 13 together. Tsibliyev:

“We felt that, especially from a psychological point of view, their situation was much worse than ours – we at least had a spaceship which could get us home. With Apollo 13 they had to fly all the way around the moon in order to get back to the earth.”

Later, by email, they received a quote from Jim Lovell himself comparing the two flights:

“I understand how these guys feel, because I’ve been there as well. I know their courage and bravery.”

By 30 June NASA was considering bringing Foale back because he couldn’t do any scientific work while Spektr was sealed off.

TsUP needed to know which cables ran through the hatch to Spektr but the Russian record keeping was not up to NASA standards.

They planned an Intra Vehicular Activity (IVA) by Tsibliyev and Lazutkin while Foale remained in the Soyuz. Once inside Spektr they would reconnect the cables linking the modules which should restore the power supply. On the ground they were working out the details, especially how to modify the bulky suits to get through the narrow hatchways. At 2 am on 1 July Tsibliyev heard a sound like a muffled explosion coming from Spektr. He saw a cloud of flakes hanging around it which glistened in the sunlight. By 2 July they had gone.

Without a working ventilation system condensation was forming in the darkened modules, so Foale and Lazutkin rigged hoses to blow air into the affected modules.

On 5 July a Progress was launched, the gyrodynes were powered up to put the station in the correct position for docking and on 7 July the Progress docked safely.

Mir loses all its power

An EKG test on Tsibliyev revealed a heart beat irregularity of the kind prompted by stress – Foale would have to do the IVA instead of him.

During the IVA the node was to be depressurized. The cables were to be divided into three groups: those to be deconnected a week before, those a day before and those on the day. Lazutkin made a mistake when he deconnected the wrong cable – it carried power to the main computer which crashed and the batteries began to drain.

By dawn on 17 July the station had lost all power because the Ground Control was too slow in reacting.

Phil Engelauf was the Missions Operations Directorate (MOD) flight director at NASA. When he read the transcripts he concluded: