RSF%SU-AI@sri-unix.UUCP (11/24/83)
From: Ross Finlayson <RSF@SU-AI>
a246 1608 23 Nov 83
AM-Cosmonauts,390
Return Home Safely After Five Months in Space
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Two Soviet cosmonauts who were in space for five
months returned to Earth safely Wednesday night and are ''are feeling
well,'' the government said.
The announcements by state-run television and the official news
agency Tass did not specify when or where cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov
and Alexander Alexandrov, both 42, brought down their Soyuz T-9
spacecraft. But Tass said earlier that Soviet trackers expected the
cosmonauts to land at about 11 p.m. - 3 p.m. EST.
A television news commentator about to read an item at 11 p.m.
picked up a telephone and then said he just had been informed of the
touchdown. In a simultaneous announcement, Tass said the spacecraft
had landed and ''the cosmonauts are feeling well.''
The touchdown site was presumed to be in Kazakhstan near the
Baikonur space center, where other Soviet space ships have made soft
landings.
The cosmonauts began their mission June 27 and docked with the
orbiting Salyut 7 space station the next day. Lyakhov was mission
commander and Alexandrov was on his first mission.
Western intelligence sources have said the Soyuz T-9 that carried
the cosmonauts was approaching a time when their return aboard it
would be risky because of weakening batteries and fuel evaporation.
There had been reports in the West that a fuel leak aboard the space
station had limited its maneuverability. The British Broadcasting
Corp. said it appeared the cosmonauts were ''drifting in space,'' but
Soviet space officials denied this.
In September, Soviet sources said a launching pad explosion aborted
another Soyuz mission that presumably would have docked with the
Salyut 7. The three cosmonauts aboard were said to have been slightly
injured.
Following past Soviet space practices, those three cosmonauts would
have returned to Earth in the Soyuz T-9 used by Alexandrov and
Lyakhov, who would have used the fresher T-10 for their return later.
The world space endurance record was set last year by cosmonauts
Anatoly Berezovoy and Valentin Lebedev, whose 211-day mission ended
Dec. 10.
Alexandrov and Lyakhov conducted numerous experiments in medicine,
biology and other areas, the Soviet press has said. Twice they
performed space walks, spending about six hours outside the Salyut
station setting up solar batteries.
ap-ny-11-23 1906EST
**********