Air & Space International Space Station-Bound Supply Ship Explodes, Crashes in Siberi

[Serpo]

MOSCOW – An unmanned Russian supply ship bound for the International Space Station failed to reach its planned orbit Wednesday, and pieces of it fell in Siberia amid a thunderous explosion, officials said.
A brief statement from Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, did not specify whether the Progress supply ship that was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan had been lost. But the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Alexander Borisov, head of a the Choisky region in Russia's Altai province, as saying pieces of the craft fell in his area some 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) northeast of the launch site.
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"The explosion was so strong that for 100 kilometers (60 miles) glass almost flew out of the windows," WTF he was quoted as saying. Borisov said there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Choisky's Interior Ministry as saying the space ship crashed in a vast Siberian forest that contains small villages. Yuri Shmyrin, the chief of Karakoksha, one of those villages, told Interfax news agency that the search operation for the wreckage is not likely to start until Thursday morning.
The Russian Emergencies Ministry could not be reached for comment. A Roscosmos media officer who refused to be identified said the agency had no immediate comment.
Roscosmos said the third stage of the rocket firing the shipi (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/24/russian-space-ship-fails-to-reach-orbit/?test=latestnews#) failed a few minutes into the launch. The ship was carrying more than 2.5 tons of supplies, including oxygen, food and fuel. Since the ending of the U.S. space shuttle program this summer, Russian spaceships are a main supply link to the space station. It was the 44th Progress to launch to the [ (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/24/russian-space-ship-fails-to-reach-orbit/?test=latestnews#) Station.
Roscosmos said the accident "would have no negative influence" on the International Space Station crew because its existing supplies of food, water and oxygen are sufficient.
Interfax cited a Russian space analyst, Sergei Puzanov, as saying those supplies could last two to three months and that "the situation with the loss of the Progress cannot be called critical."
In the United States, NASA said the rocket appeared to function flawlessly at liftoff, which occurred right on time, but there was a loss of contact with the vehicle just over five minutes into the flight.
On NASA TV, Russian officials said the upper stage did not separate from the supply ship and that on two subsequent orbits controllers tried to contact the supply ship -- in vain. Two hours after the mishap, Russian Mission Control told the space station crew: "We'll try to figure it out."
NASA is counting on Russia as well as Japan and Europe to keep the orbiting outpost stocked, now that the (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/24/russian-space-ship-fails-to-reach-orbit/?test=latestnews#) are no longer flying. The shuttle program ended in July with the Atlantis mission; a year's worth of food and other provisions were delivered.
Late this year, a commercial company in California plans to launch its own rocket and supply ship to the space station. NASA is encouraging private enterprise to make station deliveries.
There are six astronauts aboard the International Space Station, which orbits 350 kilometers (220 miles) above the Earth. They are Russians Andrei Borisenko, Alexander Samokuyayev and Sergei Volkov, Americans Michael Fossum and Ronald Garan and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan.
"The supplies aboard the space station are actually pretty fat" after the resupply mission by space shuttle Atlantis in July, R] (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/24/russian-space-ship-fails-to-reach-orbit/?test=latestnews#) Kelly Humphries said from Houston. "So we don't anticipate any immediate impact to the crew."
Humphries stressed that NASA was waiting to get more details from Russian space officials on what actually happened.
In July of 2010, a Progress supply ship failed in its first automatic docking attempt due to equipment malfunction, but was connected with the orbiting laboratory two days later.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/24/russian-space-ship-fails-to-reach-orbit/#ixzz1W0ceFIpV

[keehah]

Bezos-Funded Spaceship Misfires
WSJ September 2, 2011 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904716604576546712416626614.html#i xzz1WqMyB5Va)

An unmanned spaceship funded by Internet billionaire Jeff Bezos veered out of control and had to be destroyed during a recent test flight, highlighting the dramatic risks of private space ventures.
The spacecraft, developed by closely held Blue Origin LLC, was on a suborbital flight from the company's West Texas spaceport last week when ground personnel lost normal contact with the vehicle. Investigators are looking at remnants of the craft recovered on the ground to determine the cause.
After The Wall Street Journal reported on the failure, Blue Origin Friday posted a brief note on its website stating the spacecraft, while going faster than the speed of sound, suffered a "flight instability" at an altitude of 45,000 feet and the company's automated "range safety system" shut off all thrust and led to its destruction.
The note, signed by Mr. Bezos, said it was "not the outcome any of us wanted," but "we're signed up for this to be hard."
The mishap, which industry officials said occurred last Wednesday, dealt a potentially major blow to the ambitions of Mr. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon.com Inc., to develop a reliable system for blasting tourists and astronauts out of the atmosphere.
The failure also could set back White House plans to promote commercially developed spacecraft to transport crews to the international space station by the second half of this decade.
Championed by President Barack Obama's administration, the goal is to support a number of rival projects, including Blue Origin, to ensure that in the end the U.S. will have alternatives to reach the orbiting station, following July's permanent retirement of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's space shuttle fleet.
NASA on Friday said its officials "have confidence in American industry to help our nation maintain its leadership in space and transport U.S. astronauts and their cargo to the international space station." The agency's "commercial space program will rely on multiple providers to ensure success," said David Weaver, NASA's top spokesman.
Mr. Bezos has been secretive about Blue Origin's plans and even details of its isolated spaceport, about 25 miles north of tiny Van Horn, Texas. The company Friday provided the first public glimpse of a squat, cigar-shaped rocketship with several thrusters at the bottom.
The vehicle, which was the one that failed in last week's test, takes off vertically and, unlike rival spacecraft, is designed to land vertically using its thrusters. Mr. Bezos said the rocketship had a test flight three months ago and was traveling at Mach 1.2 just before last week's accident.
Blue Origin Friday indicated it has at least one other vehicle to test its propulsion systems and is working on two different crew capsules.
The company had said it was targeting manned flights commencing as early as 2012....

[mightymanx]

It's going to suck when they run out of toilet paper.

[keehah]

No breaking news, just spending some time with the guys in the space station..

(song does not start till about the 5 min mark)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk9ptueTDwY
http://storyful.com/stories/1000007275

Last weekend Sasha, Andrey and I received word that our return to Earth from the International Space Station would be delayed… I knew that this would delay not only my homecoming and post-mission plans, but it would also upset the schedule of many people on our ground…

I wanted to do something light-hearted to let everyone know that we are all in this together, so I enlisted Mike Fossum to help me make a video poking a little fun at the situation…

With apologies to guitar players and music lovers everywhere, I hope you enjoy our little video (featuring, in order of appearance, the Expedition 28 crew of Mike Fossum, Satoshi Furukawa, Andrey Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyaev, Sergei Volkov and Ron Garan).

[keehah]

DailyMail: Space station risks being turned into a ghost town as Russians delay sending up rocket after recent crashes (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2037197/International-space-station-risks-turned-ghost-town.html#ixzz1a2MDJad7)


14th September 2011

Russia announced on Tuesday it was postponing the launch of the latest space station crew to November 12 - just days before the final astronauts on the orbiting laboratory are due to return to Earth.

With no space shuttles to take astronauts to the International Space Station, the U.S. is now solely dependent upon Russian rockets.

But Russia has put the brakes on amid concerns over a recent crash and other failures.

That makes the potential for an unmanned International Space Station very real -- and NASA could have seen it coming, said Christopher C. Kraft, the former director of NASA's Manned Spaceflight Center.

Mr Kraft told Fox News: 'You can't put your head in the sand about the fact that you're going to have failures.'

He said failures are to be expected in vehicles as old as the Soyuz - or the American shuttle.

Art Harman, director of The Coalition to Save Manned Space Exploration, said the space shuttle was a much-needed alternative.

He told Fox News: 'The political and budgetary rush to scrap the shuttles was so strong that all the risks inherent in relying upon any single source, much less the Russian system in particular, were downplayed or ignored...