False signal delays Soyuz crew return

MOSCOW, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Three crew members returned to the International Space Station after the Russian Soyuz capsule intended to take them home failed to undock, officials said.

Computers signaled a problem with the seal between the capsule and the space station, and the two Russians and one American returned to the space station, the BBC reported.

"The preliminary analysis based on technical expertise shows that the on-board computer received a false signal that the hermetic seal was missing, after the door between the capsule and the space station was closed," Roscosmos chief Anatoly Perminov said at mission control in Korolyov, near Moscow.

Russia's space agency says it confirmed the signal was a false one and the station is sealed.

"We have carried out all necessary checks today on the hermetic sealing of the station and they show that the station is sealed," Perminov said.

"We need to figure out completely the reason for the false signal and fully guarantee that the moving processes of the operation are safe."

Another attempt to undock and return Russian cosmonauts Aleksander Skvortsov and Mikhail Korniyenko and NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson to Earth will be made Saturday, RIA Novosti reported.