THE crippled Mir space station was stable yesterday but mission control warned its weary Russian and US astronauts to conserve their energy before attempting risky repair work.
"The situation has stabilised," the deputy mission chief, Mr Sergei Krikalyov, said at Korolyov Mission Control near Moscow, two days after the worst accident of Mir's 11 years in space.
Cmdr Vasily Tsibliyev (43), the flight engineer, Mr Alexander Lazutkin (39), and the US physicist, Dr Michael Foale (40), sounded calm in conversations with mission control but were showing signs of fatigue.
They face a tough task trying to restore vital electric power supplies from the Spektr scientific module, holed by a cargo craft during docking manoeuvres on Wednesday. That work will start when new equipment arrives in about 10 days.
"The crew told us that entering the Spektr will be difficult. We advised them not to waste their strength," Mr Krikalyov said.
One Russian official said the crew were "experiencing emotional and physical stress" and had been told to rest. "When do we get time to sleep?" one of the cosmonauts was heard asking.
The repair mission will require special adapters for the cosmonauts' space suits and a special air tight door device, being manufactured this weekend. Both pieces of equipment will be delivered aboard an unmanned Progress cargo craft to be launched next Friday or Saturday. The trip to Mir should take about two days.
Until then, with their electricity supply cut by about a half since Spektr and its four power generating solar panels were sealed off, there is not much the Mir crew can do. Many of the station's systems have been shut down, experiments are halted and they are not allowed to exert themselves, in order to save air and power.
Mir is hotter, clammier and darker than usual, making for a long, bleak wait for help. Officials say they are in no immediate danger and can always take to the "lifeboat" - the threeman Soyuz TM escape module moored alongside.
Russian officials say they do not want the crew to evacuate, which could spell the end for the world's only orbital station.
The long wait will also be a test for the crew's families. Cmdr Tsibliyev's wife, Larisa, said her husband's intensive survival training in extreme situations would pull him through the ordeal. If that was not enough, he was carrying a plastic rabbit given to him by their daughter. "It may not be pretty, but it always works," she said.