
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, November 15, 1993                   TAG: 9311150102
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HAMPTON                                LENGTH: Short

NASA LANGLEY MAY TEST RUSSIAN CAPSULE

NASA scientists want to use a Soyuz spacecraft as a rescue vehicle for astronauts who will work aboard Space Station Freedom, and have asked for permission to test the venerable Russian capsule.

The Soyuz, a mainstay of the old Soviet space program, could be a good landing vehicle for the developing space station project and free the United States from developing a homegrown alternative, NASA officials said. They want to bring a Soyuz to the Langley Research Center, where it would be tested to see how it holds up during landings.

Russians have done landing tests on Soyuz, and NASA scientists plan to review the test data. Senior NASA officials will decide early next year whether they want Langley scientists to verify the results by conducting their own tests.

"If they do, it will happen here, and it would be quite an exciting event," said Charles Blankenship, director of structures at Langley.

The spacecraft would be tested in the same laboratory where Apollo astronauts practiced lunar landings in the 1960s, when the "race to space" with the Soviet Union was in full swing.

Blankenship said the Soyuz would be "an in-kind contribution" by Russia, which may become a full partner in the U.S.-led, multibillion-dollar space station project. The orbiting laboratory is due to be completed in 2003.

"It has been more or less decided that Russia will provide it," said Roald Z. Sagdeev, director of the East-West Space Science Center at the University of Maryland.

by CNB