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Progress Redocking Fails on First Attempt, Main Computer Fails
The main computer on the Russian space station Mir failed early Monday, August 18, shortly after a Progress resupply spacecraft docked with the station one day after the initial attempt failed.
The main computer failure caused the station to rotate uncontrollably, causing the solar panels to lose contact with the Sun and stop generating power, similar to a malfunction last month.
Russian officials described the situation as "serious" but said the three-man crew was in no danger. They expected the situation to be restored to normal on Tuesday.
"It's a situation that we'll watch carefully, but we're not worried," NASA spokesperson Kathleen Maliga told CNN.
Efforts to redock a used Progress resupply spacecraft with the Mir space station failed on August 17 when computer problems were reported, delaying the redocking by a day.
Russian officials reported that the "wrong information" had been loaded into the onboard docking computer, scrubbing the redocking of the Progress M-35 spacecraft. Other reports ascribed the aborted redocking to communications problems.
The redocking, scheduled for 9:55am EDT (1355 UT) August 17, was delayed a day. The redocking took place at 8:53am EDT (1253 UT) August 18, although manual control had to be used to successfully dock the spacecraft with Mir.
The Progress spacecraft, which arrived at Mir last month with supplies and repair equipment, was undocked to allow a Soyuz spacecraft carrying a relief crew to dock with Mir August 7. The Progress was scheduled to redock after the other Soyuz spacecraft returned to Earth August 14.
No docking problems were reported on August 15, when the three-man crew onboard Mir took a 45-minute trip around the station in their Soyuz spacecraft. The purpose of the excursion was to study the exterior of the Spektr module, damaged in the June collision with another Progress spacecraft.
Images and video taken during the excursion will be used to try to identify the location of any holes in the module which may have caused the depressurization of the module. They will also aid in a planned spacewalk outside the module in early September.