Briton Returns to Earth After Space Trip With Soviets

The Soviet space capsule carrying Britain’s first astronaut and two cosmonauts landed softly Sunday on the steppes of the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, the official Tass news agency reported.

The Soyuz TM-12 capsule descended by parachute at 1:05 p.m. Moscow time, Tass said.

The report did not give any details about British astronaut Helen Sharman after her eight-day trip to the Mir space station, but a broadcast from London said the landing went well.

“We are now very relieved and very pleased and very happy that they’re all down, all safe and completely well,” her father, John Sharman, said in an interview with British Sky Broadcasting television from his home in Sheffield.

Returning to Earth with Sharman were Soviet cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov, who were aboard the Mir space station for 175 days. Sharman traveled into space on May 18 with the replacement crew, Anatoly Artsebarsky and Sergei Krikalev, who will stay in space for five months.

After they landed, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev awarded Sharman the Order of Friendship Among Nations, one of the nation’s highest decorations for foreigners. Afanasyev was named a Hero of the Soviet Union, and Manarov was awarded the Order of the October Revolution.