The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

As the Kurs system guided them in automatically, 250 miles above the earth, and the distance closed to less than eight feet, a warning came on which said “Approach failure 05”. The braking thrusters fired automatically – the Kurs system had failed 5m out.

The Kurs system was originally made in the Ukraine. After the Ukrainians had put up the price of the equipment by 400 per cent, there were problems getting them to deliver a radar antenna for the Soyuz so the Russians had built their own which repeatedly failed to work in tests because its signal overlapped with that of another antenna in one of the station’s systems. The Soyuz drifted away from the station until it was 12m off. TsUP ordered a manual docking. Tsibliyev brought the Soyuz in inch by inch and made a successful dock, which entitled him to a $1,000 bonus.

The fire aboard Mir

The fire occurred during the changeover period between Mir 22 and Mir 23. After dinner on 23 February, at 10 pm, Linenger went to Spektr to set up a study experiment, while Lazutkin went to Kvant to put a fresh Lithium perchlorate cylinder in the solid-fuel oxygen generator (SFOG) as it was necessary to generate additional oxygen during “changeover”. Burrough:

He had just inserted the new cylinder when he heard a hissing noise. He turned and saw sparks flying from the top of the cylinder. Before he could react there was a flame which he described as “a baby volcano”. He remembered thinking: This is unusual. It shouldn’t be doing this. Why is it doing this? My first idea was I had done something wrong.

He shouted, “Guys we have a fire!” but no one heard him.

Hovering at the base-block table about ten feet from where Lazutkin was marveling at the “baby volcano” he had somehow created, Reinhold Ewald was the first to react. “I saw flame spitting out of the device, literally into Sasha’s hand,” he remembered.

“Pozhar,” Ewald said, mouthing the Russian word for fire.

At first Tsibliyev, who was in the air just across the table from Ewald, his back to Kvant, didn’t think anyone had heard the German’s words. Tsibliyev remembered: I see Ewald’s face, I read his lips, he says the word so softly, I didn’t think anyone hears him.

Turning, Tsibliyev saw the fire erupting in front of Lazutkin and repeated the word, this time loudly: “Pozhar!”

Tsibliyev recalled: “I said, ‘Pozhar,’ but I didn’t think anyone believed me.”

Valery Korzum did. Korzum, hovering above and to Ewald’s right, could not at first see into Kvant. Lowering his head to peer inside, he instantly saw flashes of bright orange and white flame erupting all around Lazutkin. In a split second, he pushed off from a side wall and flew across the table, cutting through a gap between Tsibliyev and Kaleri. In moments he was past the toilet entrance and into Kvant.

“Pozhar! Pozhar!” Korzun hollered as he passed. Smoke, grayish and white, was already enveloping Lazutkin.

“Korzun flew in like this giant hawk,” Lazutkin remembered with a smile. It was so like the commander, the strapping, macho Cossack coming to his smaller friend’s rescue. As Korzun settled at his side, Lazutkin reached out and switched off the red-hot canister, but it had no effect. The oxygen from the canister was obviously fueling the fire, creating the blowtorch effect. The flame was shooting up into the open air in the center of the module, flashes of sharp red and pink, at a 45 degree angle in front of him. It seemed to be nearly two feet long and growing.

Lazutkin jerked a wet towel from a holder on the wall and threw it onto the flame, which instantly engulfed it. Flaming bits of towel swirled up and around the module. Lazutkin ducked back, fearing his hair would catch on fire. Korzun, hovering at his side, immediately realized the flame was too big to be smothered.