SPACEWALKS

SPACEWALKS ON MIR

1998
April1
April6
April11
April17
April22
September15
November10

1999
April16

1998

APRIL 1

Engineer Nikolai Budarin and commander Talgat Musabayev finally got to do a spacewalk to install some hand rails to the outside of Spektr, this spacewalk had been postponed since March 3 because the Mir crew could not get one of locks open on the airlock, they did not have the right tools to open it and had to wait until the next Progress came (March 15) with some new tools. The hand rails was installed to make it easier to maneuver outside Spektr when they were going to secure the damaged solar array on a later spacewalk. The spacewalk lasted 6 hours, the cosmonauts have enough oxygen for 7 hours.

APRIL 6
The cosmonauts went out to reinforce the damaged solar panel on Spektr, it was damaged in a collision on June 25. The cosmonauts had installed hand rails on April 1 to make maneuvering around the module easier. The reinforcement was needed because the Russians were afraid that the solar panel could come loose and maybe damage the station. The spacewalk was cut an hour short because a thruster on the Kvant module used to point the station towards the sun ran out of fuel, the cosmonauts were ordered to head back inside and turn on a replacement thruster. Mission Control chief Vladimir Solovyov said that the fuel for the thruster was expected to run out but not so soon.

APRIL 11

On April 6, during a spacewalk, the main thruster on Kvant ran out of fuel during an attitude maneuver and Mir started to head towards an unfavorable orientation to the sun. The cosmonauts were ordered back inside and switched on a replacement thruster on Priroda. The Mir is now using electronically-controlled gyrodynes as its primary mean of attitude but with some additional help from thrusters on Priroda and some on Kvant.

The cosmonauts did one of 3 spacewalks to replace the thruster that ran out of fuel on April 6. The thruster is located on a boom called the Sofora boom, on the Kvant. The thruster had been there since 1992, when it was last replaced, it's fuel supply was now depleted and it needed to be replaced once again. The two cosmonauts went through the airlock on Kvant-2 and used the Strella (a crane) to swing over to the Kvant module. They crawled along the 14 meter long boom, dismantled the thruster and threw it out into space, officials say it will stay in orbit for about one year and then burn up in the atmosphere. A segment of the boom called "Rapana" was also discarded into space. It once housed experiments but is no longer in use.
U.S. astronaut Andrew Thomas was inside and filmed the 6 hour long spacewalk.

APRIL 17

APRIL17(5K) Cosmonaut Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin went outside the Kvant module to finish the second of 3 spacewalks needed to replace the thruster on the Sofora boom. The spacewalk was delayed for 15 minutes because Budarin's radio failed, Musabayev joked that he could lip read Budarin, the problem was quickly solved and the space walk continued. A second problem occurred when they tried to retrieve the new thruster from the Progress supply vehicle, it would not release automatically as it should so they had to manually detach it.

The cosmonauts stored the new thruster on the Kvant module, leaving the installation of it for the next space walk. U.S. Astronaut Andrew Thomas was inside the station filming the spacewalk that lasted for more then 6 hours.

APRIL 22
APRIL22(10K) Cosmonaut Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin went outside the station for the last time this month to finish the installation of the new thruster on the Sofora boom. The two cosmonauts retracted the Sofora boom so it would be easier to transfer the thruster from the progress to the boom. They hooked up all the cables needed and U.S astronaut Thomas inside the station turned on the heaters on the thruster. Flight controllers at mission control confirmed that all the connections were working and the cosmonauts were instructed to extend the boom back to its position. The drive mechanisms used to retract and extend the boom was then jettisoned. A few days later the thruster was found to be in good condition and was activated. It took over the attitude control that was temporarily being handled by Priroda. Andy Thomas filmed the 6 hour and 21 minutes long spacewalk from inside the station.

Date and duration of all the Mir 25 spacewalks:

1 April:
6 April:
11 April:
17 April:
22 April:
TOTAL:

6 hrs 26 min
4 hrs 23 min Spacewalk cut short because of the thruster running out of fuel
6 hrs 25 min
6 hrs 33 min
6 hrs 21 min
30 hrs 8 min

September 15
The two cosmonauts, Sergei Avdeyev and Gennady Padalka who arrived in mid August with politician Yuri Baturin who left with the Mir 25 crew performed a internal EVA on September 15. The spacewalk was done inside the Spektr module, the mission was to repair cable connections that connected the motors for the 3 functioning solar panels to the computer. The cables was attached in a previous EVA (IVA) on August 22 1997 but had recently come loose. This meant that the solar panels could no longer be oriented at the best angel towards the sun. The cosmonauts went inside the module with the Soyuz on standby in case something went wrong. They were scheduled to use 3 hours for the repair but managed to get it done in 30 minutes.

November 10
Meteorite burning up in the atmosphere over Japan (8K) Sergei Avdeyev and Gennady Padalka did an EVA to install a French device on the outside of the Mir complex. The device will catch small meteorite from the Leonid meteor shower which hits Earth every 33 years when the Earth passes through an old comets tail. The shower is scheduled to reach it's peak on November 17. It is expected that 500-5000 small meteorite will hit the Earth every hour, giving a spectacular light show. During the peak of the storm, the two cosmonauts will stay in the Soyuz return vehicle, in case something bigger than dust particles would hit the station, which is very improbable. The spacewalk was put forward from the 15th to avoid putting the cosmonauts at risk of impact with a small object from the storm. The spacewalk lasted just under 6 hours with the completion of 9 out of 10 operations scheduled, including the french device and other scientific equipment. At the beginning of the EVA, they released a satellite model made by school children. The french meteorite catching device will stay until 1999 when a french astronaut will arrive on a Soyuz capsule and bring it back for studies.

1999

April 16
Russian cosmonaut Afanasyev and French astronaut Heignere went out on a planned five hour spacewalk while the third crew member Avdeyev monitored the spacewalk from inside Mir. This was the fifth spacewalk for Afanasyev and the first for Heignere. The spacewalk didn't go exactly as planned. The problems started with a minor malfunction in the ventilation system on one of the space suits. Next problem to arise, was with the testing of equipment designed to patch holes in Spektr. The test went awry when a container with glue failed to open. The equipment was never tested because the crew could never find all the holes in Spektr. An experiment called Sprut that would test radiation levels around Mir was canceled because they didn't have time for it. The two managed to attach various organic materials to see what happens to living matter in space. Later in the spacewalk they retrieved a meteor catching device attached right before the Leonid meteor storm in late 1998. At the end of the spacewalk a satellite made by Russian school children was released into space that would broadcast a recording of the school children's voices.

INFORMATION
4 spacewalks was scheduled for the Mir26 crew but two were dropped because of budget cuts. Pictures are not easy to come by now, when the U.S. is no longer in the Mir program, but I will se what I can find.

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