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| S P E C I A L | Mission Mir |
Soyuz capsule docks with Mir
The new and old crews of Mir Joint crew has members from 4 nations
January 31, 1998
Web posted at: 8:13 p.m. EDT (2013 GMT)KOROLYOV, Russia (CNN) -- A Soyuz spacecraft carrying an international team docked successfully with the Russian space station Mir Saturday.
The docking took place at 10:54 p.m. (1554 GMT). About 90 minutes later, the three-man Soyuz crew -- with members from Russia, France and Kazakstan -- opened their hatch and embraced Mir's crew, which includes American Andrew Thomas and Russians Anatoly Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov.
"I congratulate you on this excellent docking and hope you fulfill the rest of your program just as well," said Boris Ostroumov, the deputy chief of the Russian space agency. "Now we have four nations represented on the orbit. The whole world is looking at you."
The French member of the crew Leopold Eyharts, 40, brought along a bag of gifts, including a model of the Eiffel Tower and a bottle of French wine.
A Mir greeting The joint crew -- the most internationally-diverse assemblage in Mir's 12-year history -- will spend the next three weeks together. Then Soyuz will return to Earth with Eyharts, Solovyov and Vinodradov.
Russian Nikolai Budarin and Talgat Musabayev, who holds both Kazak and Russian citizenship, will remain on Mir with Thomas, who arrived on Mir last week aboard the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour.
Over the next three weeks, Mir's expanded crew will try to repair a leaky hatch door and one of the modules that makes up Mir, damaged in a collision in 1997. Previous attempts to fix those problems have been unsuccessful.
Budarin and Musabayev are expected to perform at least six spacewalks during their stay on the Russian space station.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Related stories:
- Shuttle to undock, make way for Russian rendezvous with Mir - January 29, 1998
- Astronaut on Mir criticized for poor command of Russian - January 28, 1998
- Astronaut's ill-fitting Mir spacesuit fixed - January 26, 1998
- Crews of Mir, Endeavour embrace - January 24, 1998
- Mir, Endeavour rendezvous - January 24, 1998
- Endeavour blasts off for rendezvous with Mir - January 22, 1998
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