U.S. Set to Provide Assistance in Soviet Mars Probe, Officials Say

The United States has informed the Soviet Union that it is prepared to assist a 1994 Soviet unmanned probe of the planet Mars, but the Reagan Administration considers a high-profile leadership commitment to a joint Mars mission to be premature, officials said Sunday.

Samuel W. Keller, deputy associate administrator for space sciences of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said he informed Soviet scientists 10 days ago in Moscow of a U.S. decision in principle to take Soviet Mars-probe equipment into space on a planned U.S. space launch in 1992.

This first move toward tangible U.S.-Soviet cooperation in the exploration of Mars came after a disclosure by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev that he will ask President Reagan during their Moscow summit meeting next week to “cooperate on a flight to Mars.” Gorbachev disclosed his plan Wednesday during an interview with the Washington Post and Newsweek.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, interviewed on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” said he expects a U.S.-Soviet Mars mission to be discussed under the space science cooperation agreement that he and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze signed in Moscow last April. Such a mission, Shultz said, “has been talked about, but it’s a long way from being agreed upon.”

Gorbachev spoke of a joint U.S.-Soviet mission to Mars while meeting American artists, intellectuals and scientists at the Soviet Embassy here last Dec. 8 during the previous summit, according to U.S. participants in the meeting. Roald Z. Sagdeyev, director of Moscow’s Space Research Institute and a Gorbachev adviser, provided details in a Post article Dec. 13 of a proposal for extensive U.S.-Soviet cooperation, first on unmanned flights to Mars and later on manned flights.

Shultz, saying that “we have to be careful with problems of technology transfer,” referred to one of the central problems impeding greatly expanded U.S.-Soviet space cooperation. The Defense Department especially is concerned about providing technical data to the Soviets.