Controllers on the ground and the crew aboard the station will try again today to bring the robotic Russian-built cargo tug in for a safe rendezvous and docking two days after its guidance system failed to sync up with the space lab. Docking will be at about 12:17 p.m. Eastern time.
Watch the Progress approach and docking live on NASA TV.
Launched Wednesday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Progress 38 spacecraft was about to begin the final stage of its rendezvous Friday when it lost its data connection to the station. The loss of telemetry resulted in the spacecraft, loaded with 2.5 tons of supplies and equipment, to glide by the space station rather than dock.
NASA said the spacecraft was about three kilometers away from the station when it passed by.
If the supplies are lost, NASA officials have said there are enough supplies on board for the crew through October or maybe even November. Another Progress cargo shipment is due in September and a U.S. space shuttle is set to arrive in November.
Watch Progress docking live.
4 comments:
This is the problem with total reliance on automated systems in space. A man/woman with a joystick would have had a docking done Friday.
"A man/woman with a joystick would have had a docking done Friday."
And if it blow up on the pad, nobody dies.
A vehicle made safe for humans costs a LOT more. That's why they separate the crew launches from the cargo launches. The United States in the 1970s decided to combine the two with Shuttle and that wound up being incredibly expensive, not to mention costing fourteen lives.
Nothing can go wrong,go wrong,go wrong oops
there isn't enough money in the world to get me on something built by the Bolsheviks.
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