Two failures in less than 10 days? Pretty ironic this would happen almost immediately after America’s Shuttle program comes to an end, forcing us to depend almost solely on Russian spacecraft to resupply ISS. As it now stands, I don’t believe we will have the domestic capability to launch supplies, let alone human beings, for at least a couple of years and, if NASA doesn’t pull the trigger on a new heavy lift configuration for the nation, it will be even longer. This may just be a speed bump but, as I said, it’s rather ironic given Russia’s long history of success.
Russia: Cargo rocket crashes in Siberia
(CNN) — A Russian space freighter carrying cargo to the International Space Station has crashed in a remote area of Siberia, Russian emergency officials said Wednesday.
The unmanned Progress cargo craft, which launched at 7 p.m. in Kazakhstan (9 a.m. ET) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, was due to dock with the ISS on Friday.
“The situation with the loss of the Progress is not good, of course, but there are stocks of necessities aboard the ISS to support the cosmonauts that will be sufficient to last out until the arrival of the next Progress” cargo ship, Russia’s Space Mission Control executive Vladimir Solovyov told Russia’s Interfax news agency.
Space experts said Wednesday’s crash was the first failure of a Progress cargo unit in more than 30 years of operation.
However, it is the second failed space launch in Russia in less than 10 days.
On August 18, Russia lost a sophisticated Express-AM4 telecommunications satellite when the launch vehicle put it into the wrong orbit.
He said the six people currently living on the ISS are “well supplied — actually oversupplied” since the delivery of goods by the final U.S. shuttle mission, carried out by Atlantis last month.
NASA is now reliant on the Russian space agency to ferry U.S. astronauts to orbit, since the grounding of the U.S. shuttle fleet has left the United States with no way to lift humans into space.
Plans are in the works for private companies to begin shipping cargo to the station, and eventually to carry astronauts as well.
Systems Savvy 
August 25th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
I’m glad I was not on that rocket, and that I don’t live in Siberia. So, I guess there is a good side. On the bad side, the more they keep failing, the more they will work to catch up with USA while we rest on our bums.
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August 25th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
Yeah, and in the meantime what happens if there’s another failure. Can you imagine racing with only the one set of tires you have on the car? We seem to have a predilection for truly pushing the outside of the envelope on some things. It was the reason behind numerous space exploration tragedies and I sometimes wonder if we learn a damn thing from them. Thanks for the comment. This is helping my SEO, isn’t it? 🙂
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