Cosmonaut Admits Error

The commander of a Soviet space mission that nearly became marooned in space admitted today he erred by improperly restarting a braking rocket during a failed landing maneuver.

Veteran astronaut Vladimir Lyakhov and crew mate Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, managed to land their Soyuz TM-5 capsule safely in Soviet Central Asia on Wednesday after 26 hours stranded in orbit. Lyakhov told Soviet and Afghan journalists at Baikonur Space Center that it would be wrong to jump to conclusions on the cause for the problems that plagued the space mission and forced the landing to be postponed from Tuesday. But he added: “Errors were made by the commander. I want to say there is fault.”