WORLD : Cosmonauts Try to Repair Craft
MOSCOW — Two cosmonauts took a walk in space today to try to repair a thermal blanket that has partially ripped and could interfere with their safe return to Earth, Soviet media reported.
Cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Alexander Balandin opened the hatch of the Mir space station as the orbiting spacecraft entered the shadow of the Earth, Radio Moscow reported.
They moved along the outside of the station to their Soyuz TM-9 capsule, which is docked to the Mir, to inspect and make decisions on whether they could repair the thermal insulation, the radio report said.
In a live report from the Baikonur Space Center, a correspondent for the Soviet TV program “Vremya” displayed some of the tools the cosmonauts would use, including what looked like a large pair of shears and some extra thermal insulation blankets. The space walk was not televised, and there was no immediate word if it was a success.
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