WORLD : New Cosmonaut Crew in Orbit
The manned spacecraft Soyuz TM-10 docked with the orbiting Mir space station today, two days after it was launched from the Baikonur Space Center in Soviet Central Asia, Tass reported.
Lt. Col. Gennady Manakov, the flight commander, and engineer Gennady Strekalov will spend one week working with the current crew, which has been on board since Feb. 11.
Cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Alexander Balandin are scheduled to return to Earth on Thursday, after a mission plagued by problems with the spacecraft’s thermal insulation and a broken hatch.
Manakov and Strekalov will spend 4 1/2 months in the Mir and will conduct 250 experiments, including the growing of pure crystals to be used as semiconductors and computer chips.
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