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Astronaut still feels pain
28/04/2008 21:10 - (SA)
Seoul - South Korea's first astronaut Yi So-Yeon returned home on Monday, saying she still feels some pain following her unorthodox re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere.
Yi and two colleagues returned to Earth in what some Russian media called a dangerous re-entry on April 19, when her Russian-designed Soyuz capsule landed hundreds of kilometres off target.
She told an airport press conference she has some lingering pain but doctors assured her it would get better, according to Yonhap news agency.
The landing subjected the crew to huge gravitational forces. Yi said she had been prepared to deal with it because such a contingency was fully explained during her year-long training in Russia.
"I received prior training on it and was further assured by the two astronauts who returned with me," she said, expressing thanks for the public's support.
Yi will report her mission to science and technology minister Kim Do-Yeon on Tuesday and will also meet President Lee Myung-Bak later.
The 29-year-old biosystems engineer carried out 18 experiments, including biological, geophysical and medical tests, during her nine-day mission at the International Space Station orbiting the Earth.
Interfax news agency had said the landing capsule was facing the wrong direction when it entered the atmosphere, depriving it of the protection of its heat-resistant shield.
Yi is scheduled to visit the United Nations to meet Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who is South Korean, later in the year.
South Korea paid about $20m for her mission, becoming the 36th country to send a astronaut into space.
Seoul is due to launch a satellite from its own space centre, under construction at the country's southern tip, later this year. It plans to launch a lunar orbiter by 2020 and send a probe to the moon five years after that.
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