SPACE WIRE
Jam in descent system caused erratic space landing: Russian official
MOSCOW (AFP) May 15, 2003
A jam in the descent control system caused a manned Russian Soyuz spacecraft to make an uncontrolled landing in the plains of Kazakhstan earlier this month, Russian space officials told their US counterparts Thursday.

"The team had no fault in the incident," investigation chief Nikolai Zelenshchikov said during a working visit with NASA officials in Moscow, ITAR-TASS reprted.

The Russian-made Soyuz rocket was carrying two US astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut when it made an uncontrolled entry on May 4, landing nearly 500 kilometers (310 miles) off target after the malfunction forced the team to abort an automatic landing.

Initial reports said the craft made a steeper-than-expected entry after US astronauts Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit and Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin pressed the wrong button.

No US experts were invited to sit on the investigating team, whose final report is due to be delivered on May 23.

The flight from the International Space Station (ISS) marked the first landing on a Russian-made craft since the United States grounded its space fleet in the wake of the Columbia space shuttle disaster on Febraury 1.

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