Day: June 25, 1997

During an attempt to manually redock a Progress unmanned supply capsule via remote control from space station Mir, Mir Commander Vasily Tsibliev misjudges Progress’ speed and distance, and the vehicle collides with the station’s Spektr module, breaching that module’s outer skin and allowing decompression to begin. As the hatch to that compartment is sealed off to save the rest of the station (and the crew’s lives), Mir begins tumbling in its orbit, losing power (and all contact with Earth) as its solar panels lose orientation to the sun. With only fleeting opportunities to contact ground controllers, the station’s crew of three has to use the thrusters of the Soyuz vehicle docked at Mir to realign the station and begin receiving solar power again, a process which takes 30 hours; they are unable to use the station’s rest room facility for over 48 hours due to the power loss. The Spektr module is never repaired and it remains sealed off for the remainder of Mir’s time in orbit; makeshift rewiring ensures that the solar panels not damaged in the collision return to service. Most of astronaut Michael Foale’s personal items and experiment data, stored in Spektr, are lost.