A CRUCIAL stabilisation system aboard Russia's Mir space station was close to reactivation yesterday and life aboard the damaged orbital outpost was society improving, officials of the US space agency NASA said.
Five spinning gyrodyne devices used to maintain the position of the sprawling Mir complex were reactivated and a sixth was expected to be operating soon, according to Mr Frank Culbertson, the veteran astronaut who oversees NASA's missions to Mir.
The restoration of the positional pointing system will be a major step on the station's road to recovery. Since last Wednesday's collision with an unmanned cargo spacecraft, the station has been using fuelhungry rocket thrusters to stabilise its position.
Mir's three man crew had a lighter work schedule and appeared in good spirits in television pictures released by NASA yesterday.
"When we had problems with light and air conditioning, we were killing time by eating," Mir's commander, Vasily Tsibliyev, said in reply to a question about reported problems with hot food.
"Thank God, everything works fine now," he said with a smile to officials at Korolyov mission control, near Moscow.
Mir's commander and its engineer, Alexander Lazutkin, had opportunities yesterday to chat with their families. NASA's Michael Foale, a Britishborn physicist, was due to talk with his wife later.
Mr Culbertson, of NASA, praised the Mir crew, saying: "These guys are real heroes, It's been a serious situation here. They have remained calm and they have handled it very well."
The Russian space authorities continued to draw up plans for a six to seven hour spac9walk inside the station to regain power from the crashdamaged module.
Repair gear is to be shipped to the Russian launch site in Kazakhstan today for launching aboard a cargo ship between July, 5th and 8th. The supplies should arrive at Mir two days later.
Mir lost between 30 and 40 per cent of its electric power potential after the cargo craft collided with it during a manual docking manoeuvre. The Spektr scientific, module, which was already docked with Mir, was holed.
The two Russians will don spacesuits to enter Spektr. They must install a modified hatch in its doorway so that cables can be connected to tap electricity from the module's solar arrays.
If the hatch to Spektr cannot be resealed, the crew will have to abandon ship.