Mir on the mend after power loss

Officials say astronauts not in danger

January 2, 1998
Web posted at: 1:40 p.m. EST (1840 GMT)

MOSCOW (CNN) -- Russia's Mir space station lost most of its power on Friday when a computer problem caused the vessel's solar panels to stop tracking the sun.

But Russian space officials said they expected the computer to be restarted -- and power restored -- later in the day or on Saturday after a faulty "central module" was repaired with spare parts on board.

Back-up electricity was still being provided by solar-powered batteries on Mir, which will be 12 years old next month.

A computer breakdown, something that occurred seven times in 1997, does not threaten the lives of the two Russians and one American on the space station, officials said.

But the problem can make life inconvenient, because Mir's electrically powered gyroscopes are critical for pointing the spacecraft's solar panels toward the sun.

The cosmonauts recently rang in the new year on Mir

"There was a computer malfunction, which meant the gyrodynes are losing momentum and the power supply has been cut off from the station's modules except the main one," said a duty officer at Mission Control outside Moscow.

He said the crew was working normally in Mir's main capsule.

Mir's main computer, a replacement that arrived in November, is not the latest model available. A newer system could not be installed, because that would require a major technical overhaul of the aging space station, Russian space officials said.

After previous computer breakdowns, the crew fired the craft's thrusters to stabilize the station and reorient its solar panels toward the sun.

Aboard Mir are Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov and U.S. astronaut David Wolf.

· MIR MAIN PAGE · RELATED SITES · HISTORY · TIMELINE

· GALLERY · SOYUZ · CREW · REPAIR MISSION

Related stories:

• Russia's cargo craft docks with Mir - December 22, 1997
• Mir gets an upgrade - November 6, 1997
• Mir's troubles overshadow plans for new station - October 13, 1997
• Mir crew builds computer unit from spare parts - September 15, 1997
• Mir's main computer fails, station begins to tumble - August 18, 1997

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