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When the cosmonauts turned again to Spektr's hatch, they had no idea what they would find behind it. In the wake of the accident, officials feared the lab would be filled with waving wires, glass debris and even globules of blood collected from the crew for medical tests. But when Vinogradov popped his head inside and peered around with a flashlight, he found that the place looked surprisingly undisturbed. The darkened instrument panels were covered with a layer of sparkly frost, and a cloud of white crystals floated about like fireflies. These were thought to be the remains of a bottle of shampoo that had ruptured in the vacuum.
Reassured by what he saw, Vinogradov eased himself into the module and turned to his principal task: connecting power cables from outlets in the wall to the new hatch. On Earth, the job would be little harder than screwing cables into a vcr, but in bulky gloves and zero G, it was far more difficult. As Vinogradov struggled, Mission Control urged him to take his time. "Don't rush. You have enough oxygen," the Mission Control chief admonished.
Even before Vinogradov finished, the space station's solar panels apparently caught a shaft of sunlight, and power began flowing to the blacked-out lab, causing it to stir to life. "I can see fans spinning and pumps working," he called out. "You're giving us really good news," a controller said, laughing. "Russian equipment works even in a total vacuum."
With the cables in place, Solovyev joined Vinogradov inside the lab, and the crewmen began their next chore, looking for breaches in Spektr's skin caused by the collision. The cosmonauts had originally been ordered not to turn the place upside down hunting for holes but rather just to scan for what NASA called blue sky showing through the walls. With the work going so well, however, controllers approved a more thorough search, and Vinogradov and Solovyev went so far as to disassemble Foale's stationary bicycle in order to create maneuvering room. "Michael," Solovyev joshed, "your riding days are over." For all that, the cosmonauts found no bulkhead rupture, and tiring rapidly, they backed out, sealed the new hatch and climbed out of their suits.
Just how successful the space walk was remains to be seen. It will take several days before the power system is configured and the station's hardware fired back up. Mir generates 15 kW of electricity--about enough to run a small house--and the repairs could help it produce up to 11 more. The additional juice would allow 80% to 90% of the station's planned experiments to be resumed.
With or without power, however, Mir remains a troubled ship. Earlier in the week, Solovyev was guiding an unmanned cargo craft in for a remote-control docking when the station's computer suddenly quit, sending the entire hydra-headed Mir into a slow roll. This swung its solar panels out of alignment with the sun, causing power to flicker and fade, and with it the TV monitor Solovyev was using to steer the cargo ship. But the veteran cosmonaut stayed cool, flying the craft blind until it was safely docked. That, said James van Laak, one of NASA's Mir managers, "was an excellent piece of piloting."