Half of space station’s gear faulty

Press, 19 May 1989, Page 6

Half of space station’s gear faulty

NZPA-Reuter Moscow A senior Soviet space official said yesterday that half the equipment aboard the orbiting Mir space station was not working and crews spent most of their time on repairs rather than carrying out research.

General Vladimir Shatalov, head of the cosmonaut training centre at Star City outside Moscow, told the government daily, “Izvestia,” there was a drastic lack of co-ordi-nated planning in the Soviet space programme. “Many devices (aboard Mir) are faulty and half the scientific equipment does not work,” General Shatalov said. “The crews waste a great deal of time on technical repair work.” While the ability of crews to undertake such work both inside and outside the craft was a considerable achievement, he said, “It surely should not be a goal in itself.” His remarks follow growing criticism of the Soviet space programme, which has suffered a series of setbacks in the last few months that threaten to offset gains made over the United States in the past three years.

The United States space programme was suspended after the Challenger shuttle disaster in January, 1986, but resumed this year with four successful shuttle flights and the smooth launch of the Magellan probe to Venus from the Atlantis shuttle this month.

In the meantime, two Soviet probes to the planet Mars have been lost, and the Soviet shuttle

Buran, which carried out its unmanned maiden flight in November, has since been grounded with no further flights planned this year. After two years of keeping the Mir station permanently manned, the Soviet Union suddenly abandoned its policy of long-term missions and no-one has replaced the latest crew led by Alexander Volkov. They returned to Earth last month.

“We prepared two crews for planned missions to the Mir station. Aborted. Now we have to

retain them to work with additional modules which will be eventually attached to Mir. But we still have no clear training programme for next year,” General Shatalov said. He called for the creation of a special body to work out the aims of the long-term Soviet space programme, taking into account its effect on the economy. He said the absence of a real controlling body had led to a situation

where all decisions were made on grounds of improving technology without consideration of cost.