Atlantis Blasts Off for a Mission to Troubled Russian Space Station

WASHINGTON — Despite mounting safety concerns, another U.S. astronaut was launched into space Thursday for a four-month ride aboard the troubled Russian space station Mir, whose problems have included a dangerous fire in February and a collision with a supply ship in June.

Hours after the space agency approved the launch, David Wolf, a 41-year-old physician and engineer, was blasted aloft on the shuttle Atlantis at 7:34 p.m. PDT. His craft is to dock with Mir on Saturday, and Wolf is to swap places with U.S. astronaut Michael Foale, who has worked with the Russian cosmonauts about four months.

Daniel S. Goldin, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said he had approved the new joint U.S.-Russian mission based on three separate analyses that found the risks well within the limits of acceptability for a space voyage.

“There is no more risk for this mission than there has been for the previous” missions, Gen. Thomas Stafford, a former Gemini astronaut who headed one of the panels, declared at a news conference.

The decision to send Wolf aboard Mir allows the United States to avoid an embarrassing diplomatic collision with the Russians on a project symbolic of peaceful post-Cold War cooperation. But it exposes NASA and the Clinton administration to a higher political risk should Mir suffer a new breakdown that again threatens astronaut safety.

In Russia, NASA’s decision was greeted matter-of-factly.

“We had no doubt that NASA would take this decision,” Rufina V. Amosova, spokeswoman at Russia’s Flight Control Center, told The Times.

“It was expected, as [Wolf’s] flight will mean gaining more experience for the American cosmonauts and let the joint space exploration program continue.”

Anatoly Krasnov, deputy head of the Russian Space Agency’s international relations division, added that NASA had made “no additional demands” for measures to protect Wolf.

But Wolf’s mission has been lambasted by some critics in Congress, notably Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Science Committee. Last week, the NASA inspector general, whose job it is to find operational flaws and dangers, expressed concerns about the Mir mission. And in recent days, a poll showed Americans disapproving of the mission by nearly a 2-1 margin.

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said that Clinton was leaving the decision entirely to Goldin, although he would back the administrator.

Times staff writer Vanora Bennett contributed to this story from Moscow.