(3/5/98)
MOSCOW (AP) -- Two days after cosmonauts reported they had broken their entire supply of wrenches trying to open a hatch, forcing cancellation of a spacewalk, the crew had even more embarrassing news today: they had found a spare.
Mission Control spokeswoman Irina Manshilina said the crew spotted the extra wrench somewhere on the cluttered, 12-year-old orbiter.
``It's possible that there are more of them still lying around somewhere,'' Manshilina said, wryly. ``They also found an 8-track of Barry Manilow and the missing link in there.''
The spacewalk was canceled Tuesday after the two Russian cosmonauts, Nikolai Budarin and Talgat Musabayev, said they broke all three of their wrenches on a particularly tight lock on the hatch leading to outer space.
Officials have said the canceled spacewalk would probably be rescheduled for April, after a new supply of the wrenches is sent up on a cargo ship.
The crew will wait for the new wrenches before trying again, Manshilina said.
``They can't really go with just one,'' she said.
The trouble-prone station had appeared to be faring better after a recent series of spacewalks made repairs.
Russian authorities want to keep the Mir flying at least through next year -- nearly nine years longer than originally planned.
The spacewalk was aimed at fixing a solar panel damaged in a collision with a cargo ship last June. The crew needs to install a metal support beam to its bent central rod to ensure that the panel doesn't break away and hit the station, according to Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin.
The hatch with the jammed lock is the only way out of the station into open space. Theoretically, the crew could undock one of the Mir's modules or use the Soyuz escape ship to exit the station -- but that would leave them without an emergency vehicle to return to Earth.
``We don't even dare think about it,'' deputy Mission Control chief Viktor Blagov was quoted as saying today by the ITAR-Tass news agency.