Mir space station back in orbit after a dizzy spell

MOSCOW, January 3: Russia’s Mir space station returned to normal today after the crew replaced part of a computer that malfunctioned yesterday causing the vessel to go into a spin and lose power, a mission control duty officer said. “Everything is going to plan and by about one o’clock (1530 IST) all the gyrodines should be switched on. The part that caused the fault was small and was replaced,” she said. The gyrodines are gyroscopic devices that keep the station lined up on the sun to ensure its solar power panels soak up as much energy as possible. Russian news agencies quoted other officials at mission control outside Moscow saying the Mir crew — two Russian and an American — had fired rocket engines on their moored Soyuz escape craft to push the solar panels back in line with the sun to generate enough power.