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| Emergency EVA and hard dock. On April 11 Romanenko and Laveikin exited Mir to examine and, if possible, repair the problem with Kvant. They discovered a foreign object lodged in the docking unit, probably a trash bag they had left between Progress 28 and Mir’s drogue. On command from the TsUP, Kvant extended its probe unit, permitting the cosmonauts to pull the object free and discard it into space. Kvant then successfully completed docking at a command from the ground. The EVA lasted 3 hr, 40 min. The Kvant FSM undocked from Kvant on April 12, freeing the module’s aft port to fill in for the Mir aft port (figure 2-14).[1] | |||
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Soyuz-TM 2 • Mir • Kvant | April 12-23, 1987 | |
| 'Unloading Kvant. The Tamyrs entered Kvant on April 13 and began unloading
equipment into the base block. Kvant added 40 m3 of pressurized volume to Mir, bringing the total to about 130 m3. On April 16 the pointing motors on Mir’s two solar arrays were linked to sensors on Kvant. Kvant carried stowed solar arrays intended to be attached to a fixture on top of the small-diameter section of the base block. | |||
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Soyuz-TM 2 • Mir • Kvant • Progress 29 | April 23-May 11, 1987 | |
| Testing Kvant. Beginning April 30, the Tamyrs tested orienting the Mir complex using Kvant’s gyrodynes. In part this was in preparation for pointing the new module’s roughly 1000 kg of astrophysical instruments.
Progress 29’s short stay. During this period, propellant was pumped through Kvant to Mir’s ODU for the first time. The Elektron system aboard Kvant, which produced oxygen by electrolysis of water, was readied on May 8. | |||
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Soyuz-TM 2 • Mir • Kvant | May 11-21, 1987 | |
| Mir power shortage. The Soviets acknowledged that Mir was short on electricity. The situation became particularly difficult when melts lasting days were conducted using Korund 1-M. The Tamyrs spent most of May conducting medical experiments and Earth resources photography, activities which required little electricity.[2] | |||
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Soyuz-TM 2 • Mir • Kvant • Progress 30 | May 21-July 19, 1987 | |
| First and second EVAs—solar array installation. On June 12 the Tamyrs exited Mir’s multiport node for the first of two EVAs to install the solar array delivered by Kvant. There was insufficient room available in the multiport node for two spacesuited cosmonauts plus the main boom and first two sections of the new array, so Laveikin and Romanenko sealed the hatch between the Soyuz-TM 2 docking module and orbital module and left the hatch between the orbital module and the multiport node open, creating an extended airlock. One cosmonaut worked outside while the other handed out needed parts. The main boom of the array was an extendible girder like the one assembled outside Salyut 7 by the Mir Principal Expedition 1/Salyut 7 Principal Expedition 6 crew (Kizim and Solovyov, 1986). The first EVA lasted less than 2 hr. The second EVA, on June 16, installed the remainder of the | |||
