Russian Rocket Fleet Grounded Again 66
Velcroman1 writes "Failed pressure chamber tests have forced Russia to postpone two manned launches to the International Space Station — echoing a 2011 situation that left the country's space transport vehicles grounded and led to speculation that scientists may be forced to abandon the orbiting space base. Six astronauts are currently aboard the ISS including two Americans: Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineer Don Pettit. 'There is plenty of margin for the current space station crew to stay onboard longer, if necessary, and plenty of margin in our manifest for upcoming launches,' a NASA spokeswoman said. But Soyuz issues are scary nonetheless. 'This re-entry capsule now cannot be used for manned spaceflight,' an unnamed source told Interfax."
Re:This is conflicting with information I have rea (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/328095.html
Consider the source - Itar-Tass is probably Russian for "Fox News"
Back before the walls came down Tass was the mouthpiece of the Kremlin. If Tass is saying something then it's with the full support of Putin.
Year of the Dragon (Score:4, Interesting)
From Space X's website : "Today marks the start of the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar, and this year, SpaceX's Dragon will become the first privately developed spacecraft to visit the International Space Station."
I hope so, or we may eventually have to rely on Chinese launch capabilities.
Re:This (Score:5, Interesting)
The weird thing is that we DO have significant launch capabilities. The Atlas and Delta [ulalaunch.com] systems have excellent safety records, they haven't been human rated for some odd reason. Seems like a good time to do some paperwork?
Title is misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
The title of this story is misleading. It isn't the rockets that are grounded, its the spacecraft that sits on top of them.
Also, for what it's worth, the shuttle wouldn't have been help matters much if the Russian's can't fly a Soyuz. While the shuttle is fine for swapping crews (in fact, the shuttle's runway landings are gentler than the Soyuz's parachute landings, a good thing for people who have spent the last six months in 0g), the shuttle can only fly a two week mission, meaning without a Soyuz attached to the station, we'd have to leave people in orbit without an immediate way home, a risk that neither NASA nor Roscomos is willing to take. The Soyuz itself is only rated for six months in orbit, giving them a limited window to fix the problems before we have to talk about unmanning the station.
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