American astronaut Norman Thagard hurtled toward a Thursday rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir after a flawless, on-time blastoff. Getting him back to Earth on schedule may be a different matter.
NASA officials at the Baikonur Cosmodrome for Tuesday’s launch acknowledged that plans for the space shuttle Atlantis to pluck Thagard and two Russian cosmonauts from Mir in June remain shaky.
Numerous structural alterations must be implemented by the Russian cosmonauts on Mir before that will be possible, said Tommy Holloway, the NASA official overseeing the Atlantis-Mir hookup. The shuttle would be the first non-Russian spaceship to link with Mir.
“If the Russian integration takes longer, the date will have to be adjusted,” Holloway said.
The uncertainty stems from disruptions in the Russian space program, complicated by Russian customs officials who delayed U.S. equipment needed to reconfigure the Mir for docking with the shuttle.
The equipment will be carried to Mir aboard a new unmanned Russian space module called Spketr. It was supposed to have been launched in February but won’t be launched until May 10, according to NASA officials.
That gives the two cosmonauts aboard Mir about a month to undertake extensive remodeling-involving four separate space walks-to prepare the space station for Atlantis’ arrival.
As a result, Thagard’s stay in space may exceed the planned three months, which in itself would set an American record for time in orbit.
Even so, the Russians proved Tuesday they still can stage a perfectly executed, precisely-timed launch.
The sleek white Soyuz rocket with a blue and a red stripe lifted off its launch pad on the frigid, windblown steppe of central Asia at 11:11 a.m. (12:11 a.m. CST), sending Thagard and Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov into orbit.
“Our grandchildren will look at this in history books,” said Holloway, predicting the developing U.S.-Russian program will “allow us to do bigger and better things in space.”
Thagard, 51, a Florida physician and former fighter pilot, was the first American launched by the Russians into space and on Thursday he is due to become the first American to set foot on Mir.
Tuesday’s launch was the first of a series that will keep Russians and Americans working together on the aging Russian space station through 1997. They will be preparing for and then constructing in space a new international station that is supposed to be ready for its first occupants in 1998. It is expected to be used for more than a decade, and possibly for two, for scientific experimentation and research.
