Russia Cosmonauts Return, Say Mir in Good Condition

Cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri returned to earth from Russia's Mir station on Friday, ending what could be the last manned mission to the world's only space outpost.

Their arrival means Mir's future is now partly in the hands of private investors whose money will determine if another crew is sent up, or if the station will be programmed to fall into the ocean later this year.

The cosmonauts said the space station was in good condition when they left it late on Thursday.

Both men looked well as they were extracted from their black landing capsule which touched down on the remote Kazakh steppe near the town of Arkalyk at 7.44 a.m. (0044 GMT) under an enormous billowing orange and white parachute.

"I feel excellent," Kaleri told rescue workers and reporters who had travelled from the Kazakh capital Astana in a fleet of helicopters on a clear morning.

"I can walk by myself," added Zalyotin as he was carried to an armchair to acclimatise after two-and-half months in space.

The men were later taken to a tent where they underwent medical tests, before flying to Astana en route to Moscow.

"We left Mir in a decent condition," said Zalyotin, who with Kaleri had spent much of the time in orbit plugging an oxygen leak in the accident-prone craft. "After our repairs, the station is now hermetically sealed."

Mir started leaking precious oxygen in 1997 when a cargo craft crashed into it, rupturing the hull. Cosmonauts on previous missions had tried to locate the crack but failed.

Officials spent about 30 minutes removing files containing results of the crew's experiments from the 3.5 tonne capsule.

Private Funds Key to Future

Russia is anxious to keep afloat Mir, which has now lasted almost three times as long as its planned five-year shelf life. Space officials said they were fairly certain Zalyotin and Kaleri would not be the last crew to visit Mir.

The ship is seen as a symbol of Russia's independent space programme, even though its future is partly in the hands of foreign investors who envision it as a kind of futuristic space hotel and who helped finance the latest mission.

"Mir is now on auto-pilot but it is in good condition and the next crew may go up in October," Vasily Tsibliyev, deputy head of the Gagarin cosmonaut training centre near Moscow, told reporters. "A new team of cosmonauts is in training."

He declined to comment on how the mission would be funded, but said Russia would be able to support the Mir programme at the same time as participating in the $60 billion International Space Station (ISS) venture.

"We shall resolve all these questions," Tsibliyev said. "Mir will exist and so will the ISS - there is not a problem."

The United States and other ISS partners are concerned that Mir is distracting Russia from its commitments to the delayed venture. ISS also includes the European Union, Japan and Canada.

The Russian-built living quarters for the new station, two years behind schedule, are due to be launched in July from the Baikonur cosmodrome which Russia rents from Kazakhstan.

Until then parts already sent into orbit will continue to float in space.

Vladimir Guzenko, senior design engineer at Energiya Corp. which built Mir said Russia's space programme now depended on President Vladimir Putin, who has vowed his commitment to Mir and promised to allot budget funds to it in 2001.

"If we get money, Mir will stay up a long time yet," he told Reuters.





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