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Space trio get Wild-West ride
21/10/2007 18:58 - (SA)
Moscow - A technical glitch sent a Soyuz spacecraft on a wild ride home on Sunday, forcing Malaysia's first space traveller and two Russian cosmonauts to endure eight times the force of gravity as their capsule hurtled back to Earth before landing safely in Kazakhstan, said officials.
All three were fine, with medical tests showing they were not injured during the steeper-than-usual descent, said Russian Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov at a news conference at Mission Control in Korolyov, just outside Moscow.
He said space officials and experts had "a few tense moments", but the spacecraft landed safely with the crew in good condition.
"All crew members have been recovered and they are feeling quite well," he said.
Mission control spokesperson Valery Lyndin said the Soyuz - with Russians Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, and Malaysian Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor on board - veered off-course and touched down at 10:36 GMT, short of the designated landing site.
Craft was found quickly
"That meant that the crew were subjected to higher-than-normal gravity load on their descent," he said.
Soyuz crews typically must bear four times the force of gravity when the spacecraft returns to Earth. But Lyndin said the glitch meant the crew was subjected to eight times the force of gravity.
Russian teams quickly located the craft, which landed just under 340km west of the designated landing site near Arkalyk in north-central Kazakhstan, Nasa said on its website. It said all three crew were feeling fine.
Alexei Krasnov, head of the Russian space agency's manned space programmes, said an official commission would investigate the glitch.
"It's difficult to immediately name a specific reason behind the problem. We need to do an in-depth analysis," he said.
A similar problem occurred in May 2003 when the crew - Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin and American astronauts Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit - also experienced a steep, off-course landing.
It then took salvage crews several hours to locate the spacecraft because of communications problems.
Yurchikhin and Kotov were returning home after a six-month stint at the International Space Station. Sheikh Muszaphar had been at the orbital outpost since October 12.
Malaysian deputy prime minister Najib Razak told reporters: "This is a momentous and historic occasion for Malaysia."
During about 10 days in space, Sheikh Muszaphar, a 35-year-old physician fulfilling his own dream of space travel and that of his country, performed experiments involving diseases and the effects of microgravity and space radiation on cells and genes.
He wrote in his web journal before returning to Earth: "I am also very proud ... that finally we have joined the small number of nations that have sent their sons and daughters to space."
The US$25m agreement for a Malaysian astronaut to fly to space was negotiated in 2003 along with a US$900m deal for Malaysia to buy 18 Russian fighter jets.
Back at the ISS, the remaining crew - US astronauts Peggy Whitson and Clayton Anderson, and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko - monitored the progress of the Soyuz on its return journey.
Space station to expand
Whitson, the station's first woman commander, arrived along with Sheikh Muszaphar and Malenchenko on another Soyuz that lifted off from the Russian-leased launch facility in Kazakhstan October 10.
She and Malenchenko are to spend six months in orbit, while Anderson - aboard since June - is to be replaced in the coming weeks by US astronaut Daniel Tani, who is to arrive on the US shuttle, Discovery, later this month.
The station's new crew is to perform space walks linked in part with efforts to expand the station, which is due to add a European Space Agency module and a Japanese module in the coming months.
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