Yi So-yeon. an engineer from Seoul, returned to Earth on Saturday after 11 days aboard the International Space Station(ISS) along with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and US astronaut Peggy Whitson.
A technical problem turned a routine(常规) return to Earth into a sharper than usual descent(下降) that tested the group members' energy and courage. They landed in the Kazakh steppes(大草原) about 420km(260 miles)wide of their target.
"During the descent there was some kind of fire outside the Soyuz capsule because we were going through the atmosphere, Yi said.
"At first I was afraid, but the two other guys looked okay so I tried to look okay too. "
Yi smiled and joked her way through a 10-minute news briefing at Star City the wooded Soviet era cosmonaut training centre on the edge of Moscow. However Malenchcnko and Whitson looked tired and thin after nearly six months in space. Their answers were short and Whitson needed support to balance when she walked. The 29-year-old Yi has become famous in R. O. Korea since the take-off but she brushed this aside and said she has had little contact with friends or family since returning.
"In fact they are the heroes right now," Yi said referring to Malenchenko and Whitson. just a beginner and a little ashamed to say that I am a hero. She did though relate a more light-hearted incident on the ISS.
"I sang Fly Me to the Yi said about the 1950s pop song. "It's my favourite song from university although at that time I didn't know 1 would be an astronaut. "
The capsule's so-called "ballistic" re-entering made the group members face twice the usual pull from the centre of the earth. The flames Yi described may have been caused by friction(摩擦) heating the capsule as it fell through the atmosphere.
Whitson told reporters that Saturday's ballistic landing was irregular but not an emergency.
"The Soyuz has been through its history very reliable and there has obviously been some issue in the last couple of descents which went ballistic but I'm sure the engineers will determine what the problems are and get them fixed. she said.
In October a Soyuz capsule carrying Malaysia's first space tourist touched down about 200 km(125 miles)off course in a similar ballistic landing caused by a technical problem.
The Soyuz is the world's longest-serving manned space capsule. An early version of the craft the Vostok carried the first person into space in 1961.
Whitson,48, has become the American with the longest amount of time in space with 377 days.
