Next Mission to Mir Delayed



.c The Associated Press 



MOSCOW (AP) - The next crew to the Mir space station will blast off 10 days

later than planned because the Russian government failed to pay its

electricity bills, officials said Wednesday. 



Deputy Mission Control chief Viktor Blagov said the launch date has now been

set for Aug. 13. 



The Russian space program has been struggling to survive with a cash shortage

so desperate that officials have even discussed abandoning Mir next month. 



Last week, the government finally promised to pay the $600 million it owed for

Mir's operations last year and the space agency said it could keep the station

in orbit until June 1999. 



Yuri Semyonov, head of the state-run RKK Energiya corporation that runs the

Mir, said the next launch had been postponed because of a two-week power

blackout at the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Russia leases from the former

Soviet republic of Kazakstan. 



When Russians failed to pay the bills, local authorities responded by turning

off power. The electricity has since been turned back on, but workers have

fallen behind in preparations, Semyonov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news

agency.



Blagov said the current crew will return to Earth on Aug. 25.