Mir PE-18: Can refusing an EVA count as operational success?

Yes, in this specific operational sense, Strekalov’s refusal can count as a success: it prevented an unrehearsed and, in his judgment, inadequately prepared EVA that was not necessary to preserve the planned Shuttle-Mir docking. But the chronology does not present refusal as an unconditional success or a general policy. It records a safety judgment that produced an acceptable immediate outcome, while also exposing pressure from schedule and institutional expectations.

What happened

After Spektr was repositioned at Mir, two solar arrays were deployed on June 5, 1995. One array failed to open fully, leaving the station with 20% less electricity than expected. Soviet officials proposed an EVA for June 15, later moved to June 16, to open the array before Atlantis arrived. The repair had not been rehearsed. ^[1][2]

Gennadi Strekalov refused to participate because he considered the EVA unnecessary and dangerous, specifically because preparation was inadequate. Commander Vladimir Dezhurov argued with him, but Strekalov maintained his position. ^[3]

The operational fact supporting Strekalov’s judgment was that the remaining electrical power was considered sufficient for the planned STS-71 Shuttle-Mir docking. In other words, the incomplete array created a real shortfall, but not one judged severe enough to require accepting the immediate EVA risk. ^[4]

Later resolution and institutional pressure

The array was not abandoned. After replacement crew members Anatoli Solovyov and Nikolai Budarin arrived, they reached the faulty array using Strela and successfully opened it on July 14 with a NASA-built tool. Small lateral sections remained 90 degrees from their intended orientation, but the resulting power loss was considered insignificant and the repair was declared complete. ^[5]

The later repair shows that Strekalov’s refusal did not mean the technical problem was unimportant. It separated the question of whether the array should eventually be repaired from the question of whether this crew should perform an unrehearsed repair before docking. The chronology also records the institutional cost of resisting the proposed action: after returning to Earth, Dezhurov and Strekalov were each fined the equivalent of $9,000, described as 15% of their contracted mission fee. ^[6]

Conclusion

Mir PE-18 supports a narrow answer: refusing the EVA can be judged an operational success because the crew avoided an inadequately prepared intervention, the available power remained sufficient for the planned docking, and a later crew completed the repair with an appropriate tool. The fines preserve the tension in the episode: the safety decision was operationally defensible, yet schedule and institutional pressure treated non-participation as punishable. The chronology supports that case-specific conclusion, not a broader claim that refusing an EVA is always successful.