The scheduled undocking of the Soyuz from the International Space was delayed tonight after a problem with the hooks and latches that should have released the spacecraft.
Mission managers in Moscow and Houston are discussing the problem.
NASA officials said the Poisk docking module failed to respond to commands to unleash the hooks and latches that hold the Soyuz into place. The hooks are supposed to open sequentially. However, repeated attempts to drive them open failed.
The Soyuz had been scheduled to undock at 9:35 p.m., carrying Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko and U.S. astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson home for a 12:55 a.m. landing.
There is one more landing opportunity scheduled for 4:05 a.m. That would bring the Soyuz down about 400 kilometers north of the planned landing site. No decisions have been made yet, however, about whether to proceed.
The crew have spent 175 days in space, 173 of those aboard the space station.
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3 comments:
I don't remember crap like this happening with the space shuttle...the vehicle they're scapping so we can deal with all the Soyuz problems. Can't wait!
Not to mention those famous Russian Ballistic Reentries.
What the *&@! is this administration doing? Kill our program, endanger our astronauts' lives flying in "space Yugos", and destroy our economy...
I can see November 2nd from my back yard.
Mark, the Shuttle has had more technical problems that anybody can begin to count!
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