Computer Flaw Again Bollixes Business on Mir

MOSCOW — Technical failures that plagued the last crew aboard the Mir space station spilled over into the current mission Sunday when a computer malfunction forced the new arrivals to postpone an automatic docking exercise.

Mir commander Anatoly Solovev had been expected to guide the unmanned Progress cargo capsule into a docking port at the Russian station, but a computer controlling the operation refused to accept data transmitted from Mission Control north of Moscow, spokesman Valery Lyndin said.

“The problem is not serious at all,” Lyndin said. “It is a routine working episode, and we are confident that tomorrow no error like this will occur.”

Russian and U.S. space officials have been nervously awaiting the docking practice; the last such attempt--a manual docking exercise--resulted in the worst accident to afflict Mir in its 11-year history.

Former Mir commander Vasily Tsibliyev was at the controls during that disastrous June 25 docking maneuver when another unmanned cargo drone crashed into the Spektr research module, puncturing its hull and destroying most of the scientific experiments inside.

The Mir crewmen had to cut electrical supply cables running through Spektr to seal off the module and prevent loss of pressure in the rest of the space station. Since then, Mir has been limping along on half its power and suffering repeated failures of life-support systems.

An investigation into the costly accident has not yet been completed, but Russian officials and the media have suggested that Tsibliyev was at fault for failing to take into account the more than a ton of weight that had been loaded onto the cargo ship before the docking practice.

Tsibliyev and fellow cosmonaut Alexander Lazutkin returned to Earth on Thursday.

Solovev, who arrived at the space station Aug. 7 with flight engineer Pavel Vinogradov, has twice managed to manually dock the Soyuz escape capsule at the station--an accomplishment that raised further doubts about Tsibliyev.

Sunday’s plan to automatically dock the Progress capsule had to be put off because of an error in the information sent from Earth, Lyndin said. The procedure has been rescheduled for this afternoon.

The cargo drone has been in a shadow orbit more than 40 miles behind Mir, a distance that space officials deemed too great for a manual docking.

Once linked up with the Mir station, the cargo capsule will remain docked there to serve as a dumpster until another resupply vessel is sent up in early October. The Progress capsule will then be jettisoned to burn up with its contents as it falls to Earth.

Having the cargo capsule docked at Mir also gives the crewmen the option of firing its rocket engines to adjust the space station’s orbit and orientation to the sun. Computer systems aboard Mir that are supposed to keep the station aligned properly have failed at least three times this summer because of the power-supply problems.

NASA astronaut Michael Foale, aboard Mir during the June 25 collision, is still there as part of a joint program bankrolled by the U.S. space agency to provide training ahead of the 1999 launch of the Alpha International Space Station.