Spacewalk Will Include Repair Work

An American astronaut and his Russian colleague checked their equipment Wednesday and rehearsed the plan for the longest-ever U.S.-Russian spacewalk, a patch-the-holes mission on the outside of Mir space station.

Only a final NASA go-ahead is needed to allow U.S. astronaut Michael Foale to perform Saturday’s six-hour spacewalk with Mir commander Anatoly Solovyov, the most experienced spacewalker ever.

But Foale’s flurry of preparations and a rare stretch of more than a week without a report of a new problem on Mir make that all but a formality. The aging station is functioning well enough that Russian officials said Wednesday they plan to have it stay in operation two more years.

The spacewalk will be only the second by an American on Mir. Astronaut Jerry Linenger performed a nearly five-hour walk with a cosmonaut last spring.

Foale’s chief task will be to pitch in with repairs needed after Mir’s June 25 collision with a remote-controlled supply ship. Unlike other spacewalks, which are largely scripted while astronauts are still in ground training, NASA officials have been trying to help Foale wing it from afar.

The men will try to locate and patch holes in the Spektr module, damaged in the collision. They also need to realign some solar panels in order to restore more power to the orbital station, and may plug an open docking port and retrieve an American scientific experiment.