Russian supply ship for space station crashes

[billybob476]

Luckily it was just an unmanned supply run but still, with the shuttle program ending, this doesn't inspire confidence in me for our new reliance on other countries to get us into space.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A Russian space station supply ship crashed with a thunderous boom into Siberia minutes after launch Wednesday, rattling NASA and others in this new era without any shuttles to bail out the orbiting outpost.
The rocket failed barely a month after NASA's final space shuttle flight.
While the International Space Station has more than enough supplies, the accident threatens to delay the launch of the next crew, just one month away. That's because the upper stage of the unmanned Soyuz rocket that failed is similar to the ones used to launch astronauts to the station.
In addition, three of the six space station residents who are due to return to Earth in two weeks might end up staying longer. NASA wants a full staff to keep research going. The astronauts were just beginning to spend more time on scientific experiments, now that the station is complete.
The Soyuz rocket soared right on time from Kazakhstan, and everything seemed to be going perfectly until just over five minutes into the flight. The third-stage ignited, but the rocket commanded the engine to shut down because of a problem, said NASA's space station program manager, Mike Suffredini.
All contact with the spacecraft was lost. Russian space officials declared it a total failure after reports of wreckage falling with a deafening roar in a remote area of Siberia.
"The explosion was so strong that for 100 kilometers (60 miles) glass almost flew out of the windows," Alexander Borisov, head of the Choisky region in Russia's Altai province, was quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti as saying.
Shuttle Atlantis' final mission in July left the space station with a year's worth of provisions.
Without the shuttles, NASA now is counting on Russia, Europe and Japan, as well as private U.S. businesses, to keep the station stocked. The Russians had 3 tons of supplies aboard the Progress ship that was destroyed. And it's the Russians who will be transporting astronauts back and forth until U.S. private industry can pick up the human load.
NASA and its international partners want to keep the space station running until at least 2020.
At a news briefing, Suffredini said the Sept. 22 launch of a new three-man crew — one American and two Russians — may need to be delayed, depending on how the accident investigation goes.
They are supposed to replace American Ronald Garan Jr. and Russians Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev who have been on the space station since April and are due to return to Earth on Sept. 8. Their medical status will be taken into account, as well as their exposure to cosmic radiation, before any decision is made to keep them in orbit an extra month or two, Suffredini said.
Their Soyuz capsule for the ride home, which they launched in, is docked to the space station and can remain safely in orbit for up to seven months. That's the length of the longest U.S. space mission to date. The world endurance record — well over a year — belongs to a Russian.
Suffredini acknowledged it would be nice to have the space shuttles still flying as a backup measure, but they wouldn't be rushing to launch one anyway, Suffredini said.
"Logistically, we're in really good shape," he said three hours after the accident.
"We've always known this was a risk, and I very much expect that we'll, together with our Russian colleagues, sort out the anomaly and get comfortable with the next flight."
Suffredini was in his office at Johnson Space Center in Houston, awaiting email confirmation that the cargo ship safely had reached orbit. That message never came. Instead, "phones started ringing and emails started pouring in" saying something had gone wrong, he said.
It was the 44th launch of a Progress supply ship to the space station — and the first failure in the nearly 13-year life of the complex. The spacemen were notified promptly of the accident; almost assuredly, the lost vessel contained notes and gifts from their wives and children, as well as special treats like fresh food.
Another Russian supply ship is due to launch in late October. A European freighter is scheduled to blast off with supplies in March, and a Japanese one in May. The space station easily could go until then, Suffredini said.
A demonstration flight of the first commercial resupply craft, meanwhile, is due to blast off from Cape Canaveral at the end of November. Space Explorations Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, will have its Dragon capsule dock with the space station; only nonessential cargo will be on board.
There was no one-of-a-kind equipment aboard the destroyed Progress, Suffredini said. More than half the load was water, oxygen and fuel.
Suffredini said it's unfortunate the space shuttles retired before these commercial cargo runs were in full swing. But given the limited amount of money available, the decision was made for NASA to concentrate on the next step in exploration — trips by astronauts to an asteroid and Mars.
That's why one extra resupply mission by Atlantis was added before the shuttle program ended, Suffredini noted, just in case of launch failures or delays.
___
Jim Heintz reported from Moscow.
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http://news.yahoo.com/russian-supply-ship-space-station-crashes-172337040.html

[Rico]

Someone call Bruce Willis and take those damn cloth tarps off the Atlantis.  One more mission baby!  :)

[billybob476]

I guess the thing that I find silly is that supply and ferry missions like this are what the shuttle was made for. It's reusable (aside from the fuel tank)  where as all these other launch vehicles are all single use.

It bothers me that there is an ideal solution sitting in a hangar while we go ahead with something less then ideal and (to my uneducated mind at least) much more wasteful.

[Rico]

I'm telling you, they need to get this crew back together!   :usflag

[Bryancd]

I guess the thing that I find silly is that supply and ferry missions like this are what the shuttle was made for. It's reusable (aside from the fuel tank)  where as all these other launch vehicles are all single use.

It bothers me that there is an ideal solution sitting in a hangar while we go ahead with something less then ideal and (to my uneducated mind at least) much more wasteful.

The shuttle is just too expensive to operate.

[turtlesrock]

The shuttle is just too expensive to operate.

what about in the long run? is it more expensive to build, use, and repair for, say 15 years than to build and use several disposable rockets?

[billybob476]

The shuttle is just too expensive to operate.

what about in the long run? is it more expensive to build, use, and repair for, say 15 years than to build and use several disposable rockets?

As much as I hate to say it, probably :) At the end of the day mutli-stage single use rockets are likely much simpler then the space shuttle.

[Bryancd]

The shuttle is just too expensive to operate.

what about in the long run? is it more expensive to build, use, and repair for, say 15 years than to build and use several disposable rockets?

Using powerful, inexpensive (relative) lifting rockets without the all of the same level of safety protocols required for manned missions to haul cargo is way cheaper then a shuttle which has cargo plus a crew. You can bet there is a substantial, and needed, premium attached to launching a person into space as opposed to a box of widgets which makes the shuttle too costly. We already have cheap lifting technology available to us. What we don't have is a crew capsule to put on top that can dock at the I.S.S. So we can't use say our current rockets to go lift crew or cargo to the station. We can do some awesome satelite and rover missions, however.

[turtlesrock]

The shuttle is just too expensive to operate.

what about in the long run? is it more expensive to build, use, and repair for, say 15 years than to build and use several disposable rockets?

Using powerful, inexpensive (relative) lifting rockets without the all of the same level of safety protocols required for manned missions to haul cargo is way cheaper then a shuttle which has cargo plus a crew. You can bet there is a substantial, and needed, premium attached to launching a person into space as opposed to a box of widgets which makes the shuttle too costly. We already have cheap lifting technology available to us. What we don't have is a crew capsule to put on top that can dock at the I.S.S. So we can't use say our current rockets to go lift crew or cargo to the station. We can do some awesome satelite and rover missions, however.

ah.

[Rico]

Let's just hope those lack of safety protocols don't make one of these unmanned rockets drop in your backyard!

[Feathers]

The shuttle is just too expensive to operate.

what about in the long run? is it more expensive to build, use, and repair for, say 15 years than to build and use several disposable rockets?

Bear in mind that a large part of the shuttle was pretty much rebuilt between missions too. It wasn't just stuck in a hanger until they needed it again. Not a lot of that work was automated either. As I understand it, NASA are losing hundreds of bodies now that that shuttle turn-around work has come to an end.

'Reusable' is true of the shuttle only up to a certain point.

[Rico]

The repercussions are getting worse and worse from this now.  I'm telling you, don't put that tarp over the shuttles quite yet.

Space station could be at risk if crews are forced to leave temporarily

If the grounding of Soyuz rockets forces crews to abandon the International Space Station even temporarily, the chances of losing the facility outright skyrocket the longer it goes unmanned, Florida Today reports.

NASA International Space Station Program Manager Mike Suffred says evacuation is a distinct possibility in mid-November if Russian Soyuz rockets are not flying, writes Florida Today's Todd Halvorson.

Past NASA risk assessment shows a one in 10 chance of losing the station within six months if there is no crew aboard to handle critical system failures. That soars to a 50% proability if it remains crewless for a year, the newspaper says.

The International Space Station has been continuously staffed since the first expedition crew opened the outpost in November 2000.

In a worst-case scenario, station systems could fail, making it impossible for engineers on the ground to maintain remote control of the 1 million-pound outpost.

In that case, the station eventually would make an uncontrolled re-entry, potentially showering flaming wreckage on populated areas, says Florida Today, USA TODAY's sister publication.

The issue is acute as Russian experts try to figure out why a Soyuz rocket failed last week, sending an unmanned Progress supply ship crashing into Siberia.

Russia's Soyuz rocket is the only means of ferrying supplies and crew to the station now that the U.S. space shuttle missions have ended.

Plans to send a fresh crew to the station Sept. 21 have been postponed indefinitely, and the return of three crewmembers Sept. 8 has been delayed for at least week.

Complicating the problem is the imminent "expiration date" for the two Soyuz spacecraft docked with the station. They are not certified to stay longer than 200 days in space.

By juggling schedules, a crew could remain onboard until late December, although that would mean a landing during brutally cold weather in Kazakhstan around Christmas.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/08/space-station-could-be-at-risk-if-crews-are-forced-to-leave-it-temporarily/1?csp=34news

[Bryancd]

I wish they could just pull the shuttle's out of retrirment but there's no way, the program is over, disbanded, shut down, over. What NASA needs to do is getting going on a crew launch vehicle so we can get our own boys and gals up there and control our own fate. If we applied ourselves to that goal it could be accomplished in very little time. The Russian Soyuz vehicles have always been problematic, but they will launch again to resupply and get the crew rotated out, they have no choice.

[billybob476]

Funny, I recall reading that trips to the space station would be taken over by the Russian and the ESA, now suddenly the Russians are the only ones who can do it? And also, they are planning to return the current crew...won't they need to launch a rocket to do so? Or does the current crew just man escape pods?

[Bryancd]

I don't think the ESA has a manned launch vehicle. The Russians will launch a Soyuz to bring the crew back and they have a Soyuz always docked at the station as an escape option. But the escape Soyuz has limited battery power and if they can't resupply, they could loose that option.