Flight Commander Sergei Avdeyev, right, Yuri Baturin, center, a former presidential adviser, and flight engineer Gennady Padalka, left, wave in front of the Soyuz TM-28 ship before their launch at the Baikonur cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan, Thursday, August 13, 1998. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Three cosmonauts blast off for Mir

Web posted August 14, 1998

Associated Press

BAIKONUR, Kazakstan -- Three Russian cosmonauts, including President Boris Yeltsin's former security adviser, blasted off Thursday for the second-to-last mission to the Mir space station.

The Soyuz TM-28 ship was launched as scheduled at 1:43 p.m. local time from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan and entered its orbit nine minutes later. The ship was expected to dock with Mir on Saturday.

The three-man crew consists of former presidential adviser Yuri Baturin, flight commander Sergei Avdeyev and engineer Gennady Padalka.

Yeltsin fired Baturin earlier this year without explanation. Since then, Baturin has focused on training for the space trip, losing 26 pounds to get in shape.

Baturin, 49, a space physicist by training, raised the prospect of his Mir trip last year while still working for Yeltsin, and some said it would attract attention to the struggling space program.

The space agency's cash shortage was so severe that earlier this summer officials even were talking about abandoning the Mir after the current crew of Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin returns in August.

On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov pledged that the government would support the ailing industry, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The government has been slow to pay $600 million it owes for Mir's operations last year, forcing the state-controlled Energiya company to turn to commercial credits to finance Thursday's launch.

It was postponed for 10 days because of the cash problems, which prevented Russian space officials from paying electricity bills to local authorities who responded by turning off power to the cosmodrome for two weeks.

The current crew will return to Earth along with Baturin on Aug. 25.

The new crew is to stay on Mir until February. However, Avdeyev, the flight commander, may remain on the orbiter until June, when the Mir is to be discarded and lowered to Earth.