Russia to return full crew to space station after crash

Three astronauts will take off on Monday returning a full crew to the International Space Station (ISS) after the crash of a Russian cargo spaceship disrupted operations and undermined faith in the Russian space programme.

The launch at 0414 GMT is the first since NASA ended its 30-year shuttle programme in July, heralding a gap of several years when the 16-nations investing in the $100-billion space station will rely solely on Russia to ferry crews.

Any problem with the launch could leave the space station empty for the first time in more than a decade when the current three-man crew returns to Earth later this month.

Monday's mission was delayed from September over safety fears after a Russian Progress craft taking supplies to astronauts broke up in the atmosphere in one of the worst Russian space disasters in decades.

For veteran NASA astronaut Daniel Burbank, it is the first voyage on board a Soyuz spacecraft from Russia's Baikonur launchpad in Kazakhstan, while cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov are making their maiden space voyage.

But the crew shrugged off safety concerns before lift off.

"We don't have any black thoughts. We have faith in our equipment," Shkaplerov said, quoted by Russian news agencies.

After a cramped two-day journey aboard the Soyuz TMA-22 capsule, the crew will dock with the space station on Nov. 16, overlapping briefly with station commander Mike Fossum of NASA, Japan's Satoshi Furukawa and Russia's Sergei Volkov.

Russia's space agency chief said the Aug. 24 rocket failure was an "isolated" glitch caused by a fuel pipe blockage.

But it added to a string of failures that marred this year's celebration of the 50 years since Yuri Gagarin's pioneering orbit and pointed to deeper troubles with Russia's space industry.

Moscow hopes a smooth mission will begin to restore its reputation after more trouble this week when a launch touted as post-Soviet Russia's interplanetary debut went awry.

Russia has likely lost the $165-million Phobos-Grunt probe, which is stuck in orbit and may drop to Earth after it failed to set a course toward Mars' moon after launch on Wednesday.

Botched launches have also lost Russia a high-tech military orbiter, a costly telecommunication satellite and set back plans for a global navigation system to rival the U.S. GPS.

While NASA suffered the tragic loss of crews on its Columbia and Challenger shuttles in 2003 and 1986, Russia last suffered such an accident in 1971 when three cosmonauts died on their way back to Earth on the Soyuz-11 mission.

This year the United States turned over all crewed flight responsibilities to Russia, at a cost of about $350 million a year, until commercial firms can offer space-taxi rides.

NASA is seeking $850 million to help U.S.-based private companies develop human orbital transport capabilities with the goal of breaking Russia's monopoly on ferrying astronauts to the space station before the end of 2016.

China launched next stage of space station plan

China has launched an unmanned spaceship in the latest step towards creating its own manned space station by 2020. The Shenzhou VIII is scheduled to dock with another craft 343km above the earth’s surface later this week, as China practises a key technique first used by the US and Russia more than 40 years ago.

The Shenzhou VIII was launched on a Long March carrier rocket at 6am on Today and is scheduled to link up with Tiangong I, the space module which was sent up in late September and which will conduct the most important work in preparation for the space station, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said.

Tuesday’s launch is a crucial step in Beijing’s ambitious plan to complete its permanent space station by 2020, just as the International Space Station is scheduled to retire, and leave it as the only nation with such a permanent presence in space.

The spacecraft is carrying a German-built incubator loaded with plant, bacteria and human cell samples for biological and medical tests during the mission.

While China’s space programmes have close ties with those of Russia and the country has exchanges with European counterparts, this marks the first time Beijing has co-operated with another nation in the use of a Shenzhou spaceship.

Attempts to foster exchanges with the US, one of the two leading nations in spaceflight, have been hampered by caution as relations between the two nations still suffer from distrust over possible military implications.

A joint pledge by Barack Obama, US president, and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to expand space co-operation has yet to be translated into solid progress.

Xinhua, the official news agency, called international co-operation in space exploration “difficult”, and pointed out that while China had received delegations from NASA and the US Space Foundation at its satellite launch centre in Jiuquan in western China, a Beijing request to visit the Kennedy Space centre had been denied.

Xinhua said German and other European officials and scientists had witnessed the Shenzhou VIII launch at the Jiuquan centre.

The spaceship is scheduled to approach Tiangong I gradually, which is circling 343km above earth, and then dock with it within two days of its launch.

Different from the first such attempts by the US and Russia, which were steered by astronauts on board, China is going for a fully automated exercise using the on-board laser and satellite systems of the Shenzhou and Tiangong craft to navigate from ground control.

Two such dockings will be conducted before the Shenzhou VIII capsule returns to earth in mid-November. More advanced docking exercises with the Tiangong I are planned next year, one of which will be manned, CMSEO said.

Russia orders extra tests before satellite launch

ussia will go ahead with the launch of a navigation satellite on Friday only after it has carried out additional safety checks following the crash of a supply craft, the Russian space agency said on Thursday.

An unmanned Progress spacecraft using a Soyuz booster rocket failed to reach orbit and burned up in the atmosphere shortly after launch on Wednesday. It had been carrying food and fuel to the International Space Station.

The GLONASS satellite, part of a navigation system competing with the U.S.-based Global Positioning System (GPS), is scheduled to be launched on Friday using a similar booster rocket.

"The final decision on the launch will be based on the results (of additional checks)," the RosKosmos space agency said in a statement.

Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying all Soyuz launches would be suspended. But RosKosmos spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov said: "All decisions will be made once the work of the emergency commission (investigating the crash) is complete."

Since the retirement of NASA's space shuttles last month, Soyuz rockets are the sole means to fly crew members to and from the International Space Station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations.

The next Soyuz launch heading to the International Space Station is scheduled for September 22.