Cosmonaut Ill, Crew Returns From Space Lab

Three Soviet cosmonauts abandoned their orbiting space laboratory and returned to Earth today in a space capsule after one of them became ill and needed hospitalization, the official press agency Tass reported.

It was the first time any space mission, either U.S. or Soviet, was terminated early because of the sickness of a crew member.

There had been no previous announcement that the three cosmonauts had undocked their Soyuz T-14 capsule from the orbiting Salyut-7 space laboratory.

“The cosmonauts’ long flight aboard the orbiting complex was terminated due to Vladimir Vasyutin’s sickness and the need for hospital treatment for him,” Tass said.

The agency did not say what was wrong with Vasyutin. Tass said the two other cosmonauts, Viktor Savinykh and Alexander Volkov, “are feeling well.”

The only other details provided by Tass were that “during their two-month flight the crew carried out a large amount of work to study the Earth’s surface and atmosphere, astrophysical, technological and technical experiments and medical-biological studies.”

Tass concluded its brief report by noting that Salyut-7 “is continuing its flight in an unmanned mode.”

Savinykh went into space aboard the Soyuz T-13 space capsule on June 6 with cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov on a mission to rescue the drifting Salyut-7 laboratory, which had broken down late last year.

Vasyutin, Volkov and Georgy Grechko were sent aloft Sept. 17 aboard the Soyuz T-14 capsule and worked jointly with Dzhanibekov and Savinykh for a week.

Dzhanibekov and Grechko returned to Earth earlier.

In 24 years of Soviet manned space flight, four cosmonauts are known to have been killed.