Soyuz-U - Progress M-12M

thecommander

Seems to have been a problem with separation after the launch. looks like they might have lost it.

http://spaceflightnow.com/station/exp28/110824prog44p/

Ardent

Was it un-manned or were there astronauts on board???

Edit: I see it was un-manned, which is a relief. Apparently, it was needed to help re-boost the orbit of the ISS - I wonder how quickly they need to get another up there?

thecommander

Ardent wrote: »

Was it un-manned or were there astronauts on board???

Edit: I see it was un-manned, which is a relief. Apparently, it was needed to help re-boost the orbit of the ISS - I wonder how quickly they need to get another up there?

They've to figure out what went wrong with this before they'll launch another. The next one wasn't due until October.

lord lucan

There was a Proton launch last week that had a similar issue. Bad news for the normally reliable Russians and sods law that it would happen so soon in the wake of the last Shuttle landing.

Corsendonk

They had a couple of dents to Russian reliability lately.

BBC News Today

Russia has grounded its fleet of Soyuz rockets after an unmanned spacecraft carrying cargo for the space station crashed shortly following launch.
Investigators want to determine the cause of the accident before moving ahead with any further flights.
The halt could delay a manned launch from Kazakhstan currently scheduled for September.
Emergency workers are using helicopters to search for wreckage of the Progress supply craft in Siberia.
"A decision has been taken to halt the launch of Soyuz carrier rockets until the reasons for the accident become clear," the AFP news agency reported an unnamed Russian official as saying.
On Wednesday, the Russian federal space agency (Roscosmos) said the Progress M-12M cargo ship was not placed in the correct orbit by its rocket and fell back to Earth.
The first and second stages (sections) of the Soyuz-FG space rocket used for manned launches differ from those of the Soyuz-U which carries the Progress frieghter, but the third stage is identical in both rockets.
The next manned flight to the International Space Station (ISS) - currently staffed by a six-person multinational crew - is scheduled for 22 September and a cargo vessel with new supplies is due to fly to the space station on 28 October.
In a statement on Thursday, Roscosmos said it was in contact with Nasa about "resolving questions" related to support for the ISS as well as future manned and cargo launches.
It also announced a full review of its rockets and the creation of a working group that would "control the execution of the manned space flight programme."
The loss of the Progress freighter comes at a particularly embarrassing time for Russia in the year it celebrates the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first manned space flight and as it becomes the sole nation capable of delivering humans to the ISS.
But it is just the latest in a spate of mishaps to hit the Russian space programme. In December last year, three satellites crucial for providing Russia with global sat-nav coverage failed shortly after launch. The head of Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov, was replaced in the wake of the accident.
This month, a telecommunications satellite was placed in the wrong orbit by its Russian Proton launcher. A fault with the booster was blamed.

CO19

Whats the purpose of the PROGRESS43P ? is it to dock with the station or is it coming back to Earth ?

Beeker

CO19 wrote: »

Whats the purpose of the PROGRESS43P ? is it to dock with the station or is it coming back to Earth ?

A cargo resupply flight to the Station. It was also due to be used to reboost the station to a higher orbit.

Beeker

Station might need to be abandoned for a while until they work out what happened to the Soyuz rocket. No crews can fly until then.
Hopefully this will not happen:eek:


http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/exp28/110827unmannedops/

-Trek-

Why did they not ever think about keeping one last shuttle mission on standby for such a situation? At least until the other programs are up and running anyway, that way there would be a redundancy now there is nothing until the green light is given again.

Beeker

-Trek- wrote: »

Why did they not ever think about keeping one last shuttle mission on standby for such a situation? At least until the other programs are up and running anyway, that way there would be a redundancy now there is nothing until the green light is given again.

Money...plain and simple. You would have to keep a hugh workforce on standby to prepare and maintain a Shuttle for flight.

-Trek-

Money, of course but still could they not have timed the ending of the shuttle program to coincide with the start of the new commercial venture? of course its easy for me to say from the comfort my chair but still curious. I'm guessing money is going to form part of that answer as well.

namloc1980

-Trek- wrote: »

Money, of course but still could they not have timed the ending of the shuttle program to coincide with the start of the new commercial venture? of course its easy for me to say from the comfort my chair but still curious. I'm guessing money is going to form part of that answer as well

There's no knowing when commercial crew will be a reality. It could be 5 or 10 years before it happens.

-Trek-

oh, I thought they were alot closer than that, I need to read up more on it.

Beeker

-Trek- wrote: »

Money, of course but still could they not have timed the ending of the shuttle program to coincide with the start of the new commercial venture? of course its easy for me to say from the comfort my chair but still curious. I'm guessing money is going to form part of that answer as well.

That would have been the logical and best thing to do but money and politics got in the way:(
The budget to keep the Shuttle flying was needed to help develope a new craft and stimulate the creation of commercial vehicles, so it was never going to happen that way:(