5 Cosmonauts Meet at Soviet Space Station

A Soviet spaceship linked up Wednesday with the orbiting Mir station, bringing to five the number of cosmonauts aboard the world’s first permanent space laboratory.

Three new cosmonauts arrived, paving the way for the departure in a week of Yuri Romanenko, who has spent a record 321 days in space, and his colleague, Alexander Alexandrov, who has been with him aboard Mir since July.

Romanenko, who was shot into orbit last Feb. 6, long ago broke the previous space endurance record of 237 days set by three other Soviet cosmonauts in 1984.

The three new arrivals--Col. Vladimir Titov, the mission commander; Flight Engineer Musa Manarov, and research scientist Anatoly Levchenko--brought books, taped music, guitar strings and photographs of their loved ones to fight boredom on the marathon mission.

For Romanenko’s Guitar

The strings are for the guitar of Romanenko, who celebrated his 43rd birthday in orbit last August. He may lend the instrument to one of the replacement crew, Manarov, who also plays the instrument.

Tapes of songs recorded by the late Vladimir Vysotsky, a legendary folk artist, were brought along to bring a little warmth into what one cosmonaut termed “the limitless cold” of space.

The five cosmonauts will remain together for a week; then, on Dec. 31, Levchenko will accompany the two veterans back to Earth in time for New Year’s celebrations with families and friends.

Titov and Manarov, conducting research and experiments in the giant orbiting lab, may remain aboard the station for a year or more--which would set a new space endurance mark--before they are replaced by another crew, space officials said.

Launched From Cosmodrome

Titov, Manarov and Levchenko were launched aboard the Soyuz craft Monday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Soviet Central Asia.

The docking went without incident when a Soyuz TM-4 space craft joined the Mir station at 3:51 p.m. Moscow time Wednesday after a 48-hour flight.