The third stage of a Russian rocket launching toward the International Space Station experienced some type of problem after launch from Kazakhstan today, and officials are uncertain whether its payload -- a supply-filled spacecraft -- will make it to the orbital complex.
NASA officials said an "off-nominal" situation cropped up five-minutes and 50 seconds after a Soyuz rocket hauling up a Progress space freighter blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 9 a.m. The officials did not yet know the exact nature of the problem or the fate of the cargo carrier.
The Progress spacecraft is hauling 2,050 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water and 2,777 pounds of spare parts and experiment hardware -- a total of 5,863 pounds. It is scheduled to arrive at the international outpost at 10:38 a.m. EDT Friday.
NASA officials might have updates during the daily hour of International Space Station commentary, which airs at 11 a.m. on NASA TV. Click the NASA TV box on the right to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage.
1 comment:
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after the Shuttle retirement, there's a big risk that, the $200 billion ISS, could DIE soon
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http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts2/072issdeath.html
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and the new.space toy-makers, can't yet help NASA, since they still play only with test, mockups, YouTube animations and Photoshop images of their "spacecrafts"
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it was a very bad idea to retire so soon the Shuttle, 5+ years before have a, true, working, safe and reliable, replacement
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also, if the (1800+ launches) very reliable Soyuz rocket has had a failure, what will be the (real) reliability (and successful launch record) of rockets like the Falcon-9 and the Taurus II on which NASA will rely from 2014 to resupply the ISS astronauts?
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