JAPANESE COSMONAUT'S OBSERVATIONS FROM SPACE

This document is a TASS press release dated December 6, 1990, reporting on a press conference held at a mission control center regarding the ongoing Soviet-Japanese space mission. The text details the arrival of the Soyuz TM-11 spacecraft at the Mir space station, carrying cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov, along with Japanese television reporter Toyehiro Akiyama. The crew joined existing station members Gennadiy Manakov and Gennadiy Strekalov. During the conference, Akiyama discussed his initial experiences with weightlessness and his observations of the Earth's atmosphere. Notably, when asked about sightings, cosmonaut Gennadiy Strekalov reported that the crew had observed a 'huge ball of light' for a duration of seven minutes on September 26. Strekalov characterized this event as 'probably an unknown natural phenomenon.' The document also lists the stand-by crew members present at the conference: Anatoliy Artsebarsky, Sergey Krikalev, and Riyoko Tikuti.