Posted: Thursday, April 13, 2000
Russia's annual Cosmonauts' Day celebration was a busy one in orbit, with the Mir space station's altitude increased and its two cosmonauts working on an experiment to monitor natural and man-made catastrophes.
Cosmonauts Sergei Zaletin and Alexander Kaleri continued their activity to bring the station up to its full operational capability, which will enable MirCorp to move ahead with its commercialization plans.
They inspected the space station's interior and worked on the thermal control system. The cosmonauts also spent time with the Uragan (Russian for "hurricane") experiment, which is designed to provide video and photos of the Earth to monitor disasters such as earthquakes, floods and fires.
The space station's orbital altitude was boosted by 10 km. using the propulsion system of the Progress cargo spacecraft docked to Mir. This is a standard procedure, allowing the unmanned Progress to provide the propulsion burns that change the space station's orbital altitude as desired.
A video session provided an opportunity for Zaletin and Kaleri to talk to their families, which was followed by discussions with the flight control team. The entire Mir program team in space and on Earth marked Russia's Cosmonauts' Day – an annual event on the anniversary of the first manned space flight, Yuri Gargarin's 1961 mission onboard Vostok 1.
Another video session provided an opportunity for Zaletin and Kaleri to talk with reporters and journalists.
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