Russian Rocket Fleet Grounded Again

Velcroman1 writes "Failed pressure chamber tests have forced Russia to postpone two manned launches to the International Space Station — echoing a 2011 situation that left the country's space transport vehicles grounded and led to speculation that scientists may be forced to abandon the orbiting space base. Six astronauts are currently aboard the ISS including two Americans: Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineer Don Pettit. 'There is plenty of margin for the current space station crew to stay onboard longer, if necessary, and plenty of margin in our manifest for upcoming launches,' a NASA spokeswoman said. But Soyuz issues are scary nonetheless. 'This re-entry capsule now cannot be used for manned spaceflight,' an unnamed source told Interfax."

Comments

Re:This

[robot256]

Already in the works, these articles from last summer, and at least two companies planning to use the man-rated Atlas 5 rocket

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2011/07/nasa-ula-look-to-man-rate-atlas-v.html

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1108/04boeingatlas/

http://www.sncspace.com/space_exploration.php

Title is misleading

[Mercano]

The title of this story is misleading. It isn't the rockets that are grounded, its the spacecraft that sits on top of them.

Also, for what it's worth, the shuttle wouldn't have been help matters much if the Russian's can't fly a Soyuz. While the shuttle is fine for swapping crews (in fact, the shuttle's runway landings are gentler than the Soyuz's parachute landings, a good thing for people who have spent the last six months in 0g), the shuttle can only fly a two week mission, meaning without a Soyuz attached to the station, we'd have to leave people in orbit without an immediate way home, a risk that neither NASA nor Roscomos is willing to take. The Soyuz itself is only rated for six months in orbit, giving them a limited window to fix the problems before we have to talk about unmanning the station.