Russia has announced October, November, and December dates for the next Progress and Soyuz launches.
More Progress freighter crash investigation results: it appears there was something that blocked the fuel supply.
“The exposed production defect was accidental,” [the investigation] said, adding the reason may be qualified as an isolated case only after checking all available engines.
This suggests that the problem was an isolated error and that, once they have cleared the available engines, they can start flying relatively quickly.
In a press conference yesterday, the astronauts on ISS expressed confidence that the station will not be evacuated, and that the Russians will solve their rocket problems in time to launch the next crew by November.
Some suggestions for keeping ISS occupied.
I especially like Harman’s suggestion that the Russians consider landing in the U.S. during the winter, thereby allowing them to extend one crew’s occupancy of ISS into December, January, or even February. Also, he proposes the Russians send an unmanned Soyuz to ISS during testing of the rocket, thereby providing the crews onboard a fresh lifeboat. This is something they have done in the past on their previous space station Mir.
Pete Harding at NasaSpaceflight.com has written a very thorough review of the changes to the flight manifest to ISS expected due to the August 24 failure of the Soyuz-U rocket.
Uh-oh! The Russians are considering reducing their participation in ISS. Their government might also take over entirely the private portion of their space industry.
More details on why the rocket carrying the Progress freighter to ISS failed last week.
Good news: The Russians have pinned down a preliminary cause for the Progress launch failure last week.
Solving this quickly appears essential, as the space station was not really designed to fly unmanned.
Past NASA risk assessments show there is a one in 10 chance of losing the station within six months if astronauts and cosmonauts are not onboard to deal with any critical systems failures. The probability soars to a frightening one in two chance — a 50-percent probability — if the station is left without a crew for a year.
It’s now official: The Russians will postpone the launch of the next crew to ISS, as well as delaying the return of one crew presently on board.
The space station could be abandoned in November if the Russians haven’t solved their rocket problems by then.
It’s not just space where we are dependent on the Russians: The National Science Foundation has just hired a Russian icebreaker “to escort resupply and refueling ships into McMurdo Station,” the hub of U.S. activities on Antarctica.
Because of this week’s Progress freighter launch failure, Russia plans two unmanned test launches of its Soyuz rockets before flying crews on them to ISS.
One of these test launches will carry a new Progress freighter, with supplies for ISS.
Europe and Russia talk of joint manned mission to Mars.
I’m not sure how seriously to take this story, though its implications are intriguing regardless. More than any other country, Russia knows how to build the kind of spaceship necessary for the journey. What Europe will contribute more than anything else would be money.
A reindeer herder in Russia’s Arctic has stumbled on the pre-historic remains of a baby woolly mammoth.
Competition for Bigelow! A Russian company has unveiled its own space hotel, set for launch in 2016. More here.
Russia has lost contact with a major new telecommunications satellite hours after its launch today.
Fly me to the moon! Two stories today (here and here) from Russia about a possible tourist flight around the moon by 2016-2017.
American manned space: dependent on the Russians in more ways than you think.
As commentators from around the country gnash their teeth at U.S. dependence upon Russia to move cargo and astronauts to the mostly U.S. built/funded International Space Station (ISS), they’ve missed the bigger boat: With one exception, all the commercial spaceflight offerings currently in the works have Soviet or Russian engines as a key part of the rockets involved.
Russians to display a new rocket and manned spacecraft design at an international air show in Russia today.
According to Russian space officials today, the next Soyuz tourist flight to ISS will be in 2014.
The article above contradicts yesterday’s story where the head of the Russian space agency suggested that Russia is going to shift its focus from manned space. I suspect both stories reflect an underlying political battle going on within the Russian government.
Remarks by the head of the Russian space agency on Thursday suggested Russia is going to shift its space effort away from manned space.
Two Russians have completed a spacewalk today at ISS. They not only prepared the station for future Russian upgrades, they released an amateur radio microsat.
The head of the Russian space agency said today that ISS will be deorbited in 2020, as agreed to by the governments running it.
Wanna bet? They are only now starting to do the research the station is best designed for, and learning how to live in space for years is going to take years. Come 2020, that work will hardly be done. Moreover, the impossibility of replacing ISS without a shuttle to haul up large modules and trusses will make very appealing the idea of keeping the present station in operation.
Then again, everything I just wrote is simple common sense, and who ever expected common sense from these governments?
The Russian orbiting radio telescope Spektr-R has successfully unfurled its 10 meter dish.
That’s so nice of them: Russia vows not to exploit its manned space flight monopoly.
Actually, this isn’t really news. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the Russians have always driven a hard bargain when they have sold tickets to get crew or cargo into space. However, once the contract has been signed they have also honored those contracts, to the letter. As the U.S. already has a signed contract to get its astronauts to ISS using Russian rockets and capsules, there won’t be any opportunities for Russian exploitation — until that contract expires.
In other words, the U.S. had better get some manned launch capability on line before too long. And on that note, see this article: NASA considers man-rating the Atlas V.
The Russians yesterday successfully launched their first space telescope since the fall of the Soviet Union. Here is a Google translation of a Russian article describing Spektr-R’s research goals:
[Spektr-R is] designed to study galaxies and quasars in the radio, the study of black holes and neutron stars in the Milky Way, as well as the regions immediately adjacent to the massive black holes. In addition, using the observatory, scientists expect to receive information about pulsars and the interstellar plasma. It is planned that the “Spektr-R” will work in orbit for at least 5 years.
Though this particular space telescope is probably not going to rewrite the science of astrophysics, its launch is historically significant. It indicates that Russia has just about recovered from the seventy-plus years of bankrupt communist rule that ended in 1990.
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Busy day for travel to and from ISS: The European unmanned ATV freighter Johannes Kepler burned up in the atmosphere even as a Russian Progress freighter was launched.
In related news, the U.S. and ESA are in negotiations to merge the European unmanned ATV freighter program with NASA’s manned Orion derivative. At the same time, Europe has announced its plans to test fly a reusable space plane.
The first Soyuz launch from French Guiana has now been scheduled for October 20, 2011.
According to the chief of the Russian space agency, it presently does not have the capacity to produce additional Soyuz capsule for tourist flights.
Human bones were part of the cargo on board the Soyuz capsule launched to ISS today.
“The fragments of human bones will be used to study the causes and dynamics of decalcination of bone tissue in a long space flight,” the head of the experiment, Tatiana Krasheninnikova told Itar-Tass. The problem of decalcination is a headache for medics responsible for spacemen’s health. Researches in this area are conducted by scientists from many ISS member states. However it is impossible to take sample of spacemen’s bones, only their urine is being examined, and a complete picture of dynamics of changes in human bones is not clear, she noted.
