May 12 2000
From The Space Library
The board appointed to investigate the mishap that had damaged the High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) spacecraft in preflight testing announced its findings. The investigators had discovered that the computer controlling the vibration device had sensed an abnormally high level of static friction and had responded by delivering approximately 10 times the exertion of gravity suitable for the test. A slight misalignment of the shaker mechanism had proved just enough to throw off the preflight testing. The board had determined that the accident had been avoidable. Routine maintenance and a pretest of the testing device itself would have caught the problem before any damage had occurred. NASA planned for the HESSI satellite to undergo repairs at the University of California at Berkeley.
Cosmonauts Sergei V. Zalyotin and Alexander Y. Kaleri conducted a 5-hour spacewalk to repair tiny cracks weakening the hull of the Mir space station. The cracks, the result of the June 1997 collision of a cargo craft with the station, had caused the module to lose air pressure steadily. The spacewalk was not the first attempt to solve the problem, but previous teams had been unable to locate the cracks. Zalyotin and Kaleri tested a new "cosmic version of super glue," designed to seal the fractures even in the harsh environment of space. The Russian Space Agency clarified that the cracks were not crippling to the space station, and that the crew could maintain acceptable levels of air pressure by manipulating oxygen outflow inside Mir. However, the agency hoped to solve the problem permanently, because Russia planned to use the aging space station for commercial purposes. The Netherlands-based MirCorp, which had committed nearly US$20 million to leasing Mir, observed the cosmonauts' activities, calling the mission the first privately funded spacewalk in history.
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