Cosmonauts head home from Mir space station

Mir  MESSAGE BOARD: Mir space station

February 27, 1999
Web posted at: 10:36 p.m. EST (0336 GMT)

MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Two cosmonauts, a Russian and a Slovak, successfully undocked from the space station Mir early Sunday and headed back to Earth aboard the Soyuz TM-28 capsule, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

The Soyuz capsule detached from the station at 1:52 a.m. Moscow time (2252 GMT), it said. The vehicle was due to land in Kazakhstan at 0214 GMT.

A spokesman at Mission Control outside Moscow said Russia's Gennady Padalka and Slovakia's Ivan Bella had entered the capsule without a hitch at 22:53 p.m. (1953 GMT).

Padalka has been in space since August, but Bella has spent less than a week on Mir. He left earth Monday with two other cosmonauts on what could be the last mission to the 13- year-old Mir before it goes out of service.

The three men now on Mir, Frenchman Jean-Pierre Haignere and Russians Viktor Afanasyev and Sergei Avdeyev, are scheduled to remain until August.

Lack of funds could doom Mir

The Russian Space Agency says it has government funding to keep Mir in orbit until August. After that it is up to the Energiya rocket corporation, which owns Mir, to find private sponsors. So far it has had no success.

Viktor Blagov, deputy flight director at Mission Control, said this week that Padalka and Avdeyev had worked well on their mission, which began six months ago.

"Everything was done smoothly, reliably, with inspiration and a will," Blagov told RIA news agency, describing them as a "very successful crew."

After a near-fatal collision with a cargo craft in 1997, Mir has enjoyed a relatively trouble-free period, although it needs constant small repairs.

But Russian efforts to keep Mir in orbit past the original retirement date of June have irritated the United States, which has pressed Moscow to focus its meager resources on the International Space Station.

The new station is more than a year behind schedule because of Russian delays.

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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