ROD%SU-AI@sri-unix.UUCP (11/27/83)
From: Rod Brooks <ROD@SU-AI>
n507 2201 20 Nov 83
BC-SPACE-11-21
EDITORS: The following is from the London Telegraph and is for use
only in the United States and Canada.
By Nigel Wade
Daily Telegraph, London (Independent Press Service)
MOSCOW - The Soyuz space capsule that will soon return two
cosmonauts to earth from the Salyut 7 orbital station has not
exhausted any of its resources, Pravda said Sunday.
Some Western space experts have suggested that the batteries and
other fuel resources of the Soyuz may be running dangerously low.
A launching pad accident in October prevented three other cosmonauts
visiting Salyut 7. They were to have returned in the Soyuz, leaving a
fresh Soyuz capsule attached to the space station.
The failure of that mission means the orbiting cosmonauts, Alexander
Alexandrov and Vladimir Lyakhov, will use for their return the same
capsule in which they arrived at the space station June 28.
A spokesman for the Soviet Academy of Sciences has denied there is
anything wrong with the capsule and Pravda made a special point of
rejecting such speculation again Sunday.
It quoted Valery Ryumin, a former cosmonaut and now mission control
chief, as saying, ''All systems of the capsule were and are in good
technical condition or, in other words, they have not exhausted their
resources.'' No return date has been announced but the cosmonauts are
already busy mothballing the space station to await its next
occupants.
While in orbit, they have fitted two extra solar batteries to Salyut
7. Soviet reports emphasized that this work had been planned from the
beginning of the mission and was not a response to any unforeseen
problem.
END
nyt-11-21-83 0056est
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