2 Cosmonauts Return After Year in Space

Two cosmonauts ended history’s longest space flight today after a year in orbit, returning to Earth three hours later than planned because of a problem with an overloaded computer chip.

Riding with record-setting cosmonauts Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov was Frenchman Jean-Loup Chretien, who has been in space less than a month.

Their Soyuz TM-6 capsule parachuted safely to Soviet Central Asia at 12:57 p.m. Moscow time. The Soviets had blasted off at 2:18 p.m. on Dec. 21, 1987.

Doctors met the cosmonauts at the landing site, and they were flown to the Star City space training center north of Moscow, where Titov and Manarov will undergo rehabilitation from the effects of a year in weightlessness, Tass press agency reported.

“Immediate medical check-ups showed the cosmonauts are feeling well,” Radio Moscow said.

The flight by Titov and Manarov lasted 365 days, 22 hours, and 39 minutes, breaking the 326-day endurance mark set by fellow Soviet spaceman Yuri Romanenko in 1987. Titov and Manarov had replaced a crew including Romanenko aboard the Mir.

U.S. Mark 84 Days

The U.S. mark for the longest manned mission is 84 days, set in 1973 by astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson and William Pogue aboard the Skylab space station.

The mission by Manarov and Titov gave the Soviets valuable experience as they prepare for a three-year journey to Mars. Soviet officials have said a manned mission to Mars will be launched around the turn of the century.

The foul-up that delayed the Soyuz capsule’s landing--a computer chip whose memory overloaded--was the second major problem in the Soviet manned space program this year. In September, equipment malfunctions and crew error delayed the landing of a Soviet and an Afghan spaceman as they ran dangerously low on food and air.

“It’s nothing, boys. You flew for a year, so you can wait another two orbits,” flight director Valery Ryumin told Titov and Manarov after the first landing attempt was aborted. “Let Jean-Loup look at Paris from above one more time.”

Surfaces After Separation

The problem began shortly after the Soyuz TM-6 separated from the Mir orbiting complex, where Titov and Manarov spent most of their time in space.

An on-board computer that controls landing signaled that its memory was overloaded, and automatically stopped preparations for descent.