US, Spanish Doctors to be at Soyuz Landing Site
ASTANA (AFP) — In an unprecedented security measure, doctors from the United States and Spain will be present at the landing site of the Soyuz spacecraft due to bring US astronaut Edward Lu, Russia’s Yuri Malenchenko and Spain’s Pedro Duque back to Earth, Russian space officials said Sunday.
“NASA and the European Space Agency insisted that the doctors be at the site, this has never happened before,” spokesman for Russia’s space search and rescue agency, Mikhail Polukhin, told AFP.
Concerns sparked by the last mission’s troubled landing apparently prompted the demand, Polukhin said.
A US military mobile hospital would also be on standby in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana, “to be called upon in case of need,” the spokesman added.
ESA is one of the main partners along with Russia and the United States in the 16-nation International Space Station (ISS) project.
It is the first space mission for a European astronaut on the ISS since the disaster of the American space shuttle Columbia in February, and the presence of Spaniard Pedro Duque on the flight was seen as a boost for the European space program.
Duque will land in Kazakhstan on October 28 in a Soyuz capsule with Malenchenko and Lu, who will be replaced by British-born American Michael Foale and Russian Alexander Kaleri on board the ISS.
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