Special Committee to Produce Investigation Results of Off-Nominal Landing of "Soyuz TMA-1"

The committee investigating the causes of the off-nominal landing of the Soyuz TMA-1 spaceship intend to produce results by May 23rd, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Rosaviakosmos, informed a RIA Novosti correspondent on Thursday.

On May 4th the spaceship with an international crew on board returning from the International Space Station landed in Kazakhstan "in the off-nominal regime". The descent module landed 460 kilometres off the expected landing site.

According to the preliminary expert estimates, instead of using an automated soft landing regime the ship followed a so-called "ballistic trajectory", which resulted in the crew's suffering a ninefold instead of triple gravitational overload.

"The committee has telemetric information received in the landing process. It is in good condition. Magnetic recordings of the ship crew's conversations with the Earth are also in good condition. Therefore, the committee hopes to complete the work as early as in two weeks," the Agency stated.

It has also been reported that the crewmembers, Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin and American astronauts Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit are currently undergoing medical rehabilitation in the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in the Star City. Their condition keeps within the postflight norm and their official press conference is due to take place on May 19th in the Star City.