Soviet spacemen take a walk

Press, 5 November 1983, Page 11

Soviet spacemen take a walk

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Two Soviet cosmonauts spent nearly three hours outside their orbiting spacecraft yesterday installing a new solar battery in the second such operation in three days, Moscow Radio

reported. The official Tass news agency praised the operation as a fresh success for Soviet science and technology, saying the installation of the new battery had enhanced the station’s power system and broadened the programme of experiments now possible. The cosmonauts, Alexander Alexandrov and Vladimir Lyakhov, who have now been aboard the Salyut 7 space station for four months, spent two hours and 50 minutes outside the capsule on Wedriesday installing the first new battery. Yesterday’s spacewalk was carried out “with due account for the experience of the previous spacewalk,” Tass said in an indirect acknowledgement of . the strain on the cosmonauts, who have already complained of feeling tired. Space analysts in the United States have said the two cosmonauts may have been in difficulties because of a fuel leak and the fact that a launchpad accident prevented another manned flight from joining them. The Soviet Academy of Sciences denied there was a leak and a mission director was quoted as saying there was no danger whatsoever to the men.