The World - News from July 30, 1987

A Soviet spacecraft with Syria’s first cosmonaut and two Soviet companions on board landed safely in the Central Asian province of Kazakhstan after a week’s visit to the orbiting space station Mir, Moscow radio said. Syrian air force Lt. Col. Mohammed Faris, his mission commander, Alexander Viktorenko, and cosmonaut Alexander Laveikin landed in the descent module of their Soyuz TM-2 spacecraft, said the radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp. During the mission, the 12th Soviet flight involving a foreign cosmonaut, the team conducted medical and technological experiments and photographed the Syrian desert and Euphrates River to help Syrian geographers and farmers.