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A controller looks at a model of the Mir space station at the Mission Control Center outside Moscow, Tuesday, June 2, 1998. Relieved to have Mir steady again, NASA cleared space shuttle Discovery for liftoff Tuesday on one last ferry flight to Russia's mended space station. AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

Space officials say Mir steady again

Web posted June 3, 1998

 Discovery soars on NASA's last voyage to Mir

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Relieved to have Mir steady again, NASA cleared space shuttle Discovery for liftoff today and the crew boarded for one last ferry flight to Russia's mended space station.

The six crew members began entering the fueled shuttle in midafternoon as the temperature hit 95 degrees. The limit for launching is 99 degrees. A cooler 87 degrees was expected at launch time shortly after 6 p.m.

``It's a little bit hot out there. Other than that, we're in good shape,'' a launch controller told commander Charles Precourt.

Earlier in the week, shuttle managers wondered whether they might have to delay the launch because of a disabled steering system aboard Mir. But the cosmonauts managed to restart their automatic thrusters Monday after three days of drifting without control around Earth.

``The situation is basically under control, and there is no reason to delay,'' the acting director of Russia's Mir-shuttle program, Boris Sotnikov, announced at the Kennedy Space Center.

The automatic steering system is needed to keep the space station steady while the shuttle approaches. NASA does not want to risk trying to dock with a wobbly Mir.

This will be NASA's ninth and final hookup with Mir. Discovery will bring home Andrew Thomas, the last American astronaut to live on the aging Russian outpost.

``It's interesting that at the very end of the program, after such a smooth increment for Andy, that we had this problem occur with the motion-control system,'' said Frank Culbertson, director of NASA's shuttle-Mir program. ``It's frustrating to a certain extent, but, hey, maybe it's our signature. It certainly adds some drama to it.''

Thomas was probably happier than anyone to have the steering system back in business. He has been living on Mir for the past four months and said last week that he is ``very keen'' to come home.

If Discovery lifts off today, it will rendezvous with Mir on Thursday and have Thomas back on Earth on June 12.

Until the computer failed over the weekend, Thomas had been enjoying a ``remarkably peaceful and benign'' flight. Some of his six predecessors had much bumpier Mir rides: One fought a fierce fire, and another endured a near-catastrophic collision.

The computer that controls Mir's automatic steering system failed Saturday and was replaced by the three-man crew on Sunday, but the new computer also shut down. Engineers initially suspected bad software, but finally traced the problem to an electronics box.

The cosmonauts switched to a backup electronics unit, and by late Monday afternoon they had Mir's thrusters humming once again.

``We've been flying the station for a long time, over 12 years now,'' Sotnikov said. ``And quite frankly, similar situations occurred in the past, too, and we have accumulated a lot of experience on how to get out of those situations.''

NASA officials said the assorted problems in the shuttle-Mir program, called Phase 1, served as key lessons for the international space station, Phase 2. The U.S. and Russian space agencies hope to begin assembling the station in orbit by the end of this year.

``One of the most important things that we've learned from Phase 1 is that you have to expect the unexpected,'' Culbertson said.