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| *This explanation is excerpted from****Shuttle-Mir: The U.S.           and Russia Share History's Highest Stage*.**

On June 25, 1997, Vasily Tsibliev took remote control of the Progress           resupply vehicle and fired its rockets to propel the craft toward the           Mir Space Station. In ways, the procedure was similar to playing a video           arcade game. Tsibliev had to virtually "fly" the Progress from onboard           Mir while he watched a video screen that showed an image from a camera           onboard the Progress. 

The Progress left its parking orbit and began moving rapidly toward           Mir. But, on the video screen "it was difficult to make out the station,"           according to Tsibliev. The Mir complex "looked very similar to the clouds           below it." Tsiblievs deficient perspective had a further limitation.           According to Mike Foale, "What Vasily was seeing on his screen was an           image that didnt change in size very fast. Thats the nature of using           a TV screen to judge your speed and your distance. He couldnt determine           accurately from the image that the speed was too high."

 By the time Tsibliev could judge the speed, the Progress was already           traveling too fast. He fired the braking rockets, but it was too late.           Aleksandr Lazutkin finally espied the Progress, and he realized the           danger. "Michael, get in the escape ship!" he told Foale. Lazutkin later           described the onrushing Progress as looking "full of menace, like a           shark." He said, "I watched this black body covered in spots sliding           past below me. I looked closer, and at that point there was a great           thump and the whole station shook." 

The Progress collided with a solar array on the Spektr module. Then,           the spacecraft hit Spektr itself, punched a hole in a solar panel, buckled           a radiator, and breached the integrity of Spektrs hull. 

The collision had knocked Mir into a spin; and the power outage had           shut down the gyrodynes so that the spin now went uncontrolled. To stop           the spin and face the arrays toward the Sun, the crew needed to know           the spin rate of Mir. However, the computer and other instruments were           out of operation. So, in the dark and in the silence, Foale went to           the windows in the airlock and held his thumb up to the field of stars.           Combining a sailors technique with a scientists knowledge of physics,           Foale estimated the spin rate of the space station. Then, he and Lazutkin           radioed the estimates down to the Moscow Control Center. The ground           controllers fired Mirs engines, and that stopped the spincertainly           not perfectly, and in no way permanently; but it showed that it could           be done.

*The following are computer generated animations of           the collision and the spin that followed and are provided by Analytical           Graphics, Inc.*

Progress           Collision with Mir - MPEG           (13 M) (No Audio) Mir           Spin - MPEG (8 M) (No Audio)

Read           more about Mike Foale and the collision in his Oral HistoryRead           more about the NASA-5 incrementSee           more computer generated animations of the Mir          | See         theMir/Progress        Collision         Animation

See         theMir         Spin        Animation

See theMir         Deorbit         Animation

See otherMir        Animation |
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