Today was a special one for mission commander Sergei Zalyotin, who celebrated his 38th birthday.
Zalyotin spoke with members of his family during the morning of April 21, and was
wished a happy birthday by the flight control team and cosmonauts Valery Korzun,
Nicolai Budarin and Pavel Vinogradov.
Today’s activities on Mir focused primarily on the space station’s life support system.
The work included activating the Potok 15MK air revitalization unit and assembling a
line between the air conditioning unit and a condensation evacuation pump.
Zalyotin and Alexander Kalery continue to monitor the air pressure inside Mir after
isolating and repairing a leak in the Spektr module’s hatch earlier this week. The leak
was detected after testing in which the crew deactivated Mir’s Kvant 2 and Kristall
modules and closed their hatches. The Spektr, Kvant 2, Kristall and Priroda modules
all are docked to a ball-shaped unit on the front end of Mir.
With the leak in Spektr’s hatch now plugged, the Kvant 2’s hatch was reopened
today and the module reactivated.
