Soviets Blast Off to Relieve Space Lab Crew

Three Soviet cosmonauts blasted off aboard a Soyuz TM-4 capsule today to replace a homesick crew at the Mir space station that has set records for endurance in space.

It will be the first complete crew change at a Soviet orbital platform.

The current Mir crew is headed by Yuri Romanenko, who has been in space for 319 days.

The white capsule left the Baikonur space center in Soviet Kazakhstan at 2:18 p.m. Its flaming engines spread a rose-colored glow on the snowy landscape before the live television broadcast showed the spacecraft disappearing as an orange cross into the murky sky.

Television then showed black-and-white pictures of the cosmonauts inside the spacecraft.

Tass press agency said the three cosmonauts had barely reached orbit when they received a greeting from the Mir space station.

“We congratulate you on a successful launch,” it said. “Looking forward to meeting you on board the Mir-Kvant complex” on Wednesday.

Orbiting Laboratory

Kvant is a large, orbital laboratory that docked with the space station on April 9. The Mir crew was forced to make a space walk to clear an obstruction between the two ships to make the docking possible.

The Soyuz TM-4 carried Vladimir Titov, 40-year-old crew chief; Musa Manarov, a 31-year-old flight engineer; and Anatoly Levchenko, a test pilot.

Tass said the two crews will work together on the space station for about a week before Romanenko and flight engineer Alexander Alexandrov leave for Earth with Levchenko.

Radio Moscow said they will be home by New Year’s Day.

Romanenko, the flight commander, has been in space since Feb. 6. He set the world record for space endurance on Sept. 30.

Romanenko was accompanied into space by flight engineer Alexander Laveikin, who fell ill and was replaced by Alexandrov in July.