Fla. - Astronaut Jerry Linenger and his crewmates aboard the Russian space station Mir dove back into their experiments Tuesday, two days after their work was halted by a small fire. When they woke up this morning, they did a test on the atmosphere and found no carbon dioxide and no residual contaminants. The small blaze erupted Sunday in the station's Kvant 1 module, sending black smoke billowing throughout Mir's six trailer-sized rooms before it was doused. Three of the cosmonauts, Alexander Lazutkin, Valery Korzun and Vasily Tsibliyev, extinguished the fire. The blaze started while Lazutkin was changing a chemical canister in an oxygen generator.
Russian officials think the canister had a leak, releasing the chemicals which sparked the blaze.
It was never serious enough to consider an emergency departure from Mir in the two spacecraft docked there for return to Earth. NASA officials don't know where Linenger was when the fire started, but Linenger, a physician, later examined all the crew members and found them to be fine. Although the fire only burned for 90 seconds, thick smoke wafted through the station for about seven minutes. Search the Space Online Web site for stories, images and other files. Sponsored by the International Space Station Foundation .