Mir Uncontrolled Spin

The collision of the Progress resupply vehicle on June 25, 1997 knocked Mir into a spin and the resulting power outage shut down the gyrodynes so that the spin went uncontrolled. To stop the spin and face the arrays toward the Sun, the crew needed to know the spin rate of Mir. However, the computer and other instruments were out of operation. So, in the dark and in the silence, Foale went to the windows in the airlock and held his thumb up to the field of stars. Combining a sailor's technique with a scientist's knowledge of physics, Foale estimated the spin rate of the space station. Then, he and Lazutkin radioed the estimates down to the Moscow Control Center. The ground controllers fired Mir's engines, and that stopped the spin—certainly not perfectly, and in no way permanently; but it showed that it could be done.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• mir
• spin
• nasa
• russia
• collision
• emergency

[jmr1068204]

Ironic that "Progress" caused it, eh?

[gavinovz]

Must of been a wild ride.

[Shuttheheckup735]

@WCGwkf

... You think I didn't know that? What use would a space station have if no one could go in it?

[WCGwkf]

@Shuttheheckup735 btw, people were in that station

[dasdfasdfasdfasfasdf]

@BandP136 regress

[Shuttheheckup735]

"OH MY GOD WE ARE SPINNING AT ABOUT 2 RPM!!!!! AHHHHHHHHH"

then it just explodes :P

[BandP136]

If pro is the opposite of con, then what is the opposite of progress

[BjornPalmen]

@Kenshiroit Wikipedia says:

The privately funded Soyuz TM-30 mission by MirCorp, launched on 4 April 2000, carried two crew members, Sergei Zalyotin and Alexandr Kaleri, to the station for two months to do repair work with the hope of proving that the station could be made safe. But this was to be the last manned mission to Mir. While Russia was optimistic about Mir's future, its commitments to the International Space Station project left no funding to support the ageing station.

[Kenshiroit]

@M1ddleF1nger your right! but I was sure it was in the '99. Thank you.

[M1ddleF1nger]

@BjornPalmen @Kenshiroit "Mir" was de-orbited 23 March 2001

[Kenshiroit]

@BjornPalmen Mir was deorbited in '99