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Russian Cargo Spacehip Declared Lost
schwit1 writes: The Russians have declared lost the Progress freighter that had been launched to the ISS yesterday. They never could regain control of the craft, plus it was in an incorrect orbit. Moreover, the U.S. Air Force has detected debris nearby, suggesting a significant failure of some kind. The Russians are now considering delaying the next manned launch, scheduled for May 26, while they investigate this failure. Both Soyuz and Progress use some of the same systems, including the radar system that failed on Progress, and they want to make sure the problem won't pop up on the manned mission. At the same time, they are also considering advancing the launch date of the next Progress to ISS from August 6. Based on these reports, I think they might swap the launch dates for the two flights. A Dragon is scheduled to go to ISS in between these missions, though that schedule could be changed as well to accommodate the Russian plans.
Retro actually :/
Ukraine was going to build the Zenit next-gen rockets back when there was a Soviet Union
Politics became an issue and now Russia builds what Russia uses
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Yeah, I'll give you that one. Of course it would not have been an issue for us either if we were still using 1960's technology
Just imagine how much mass we could have launched into orbit by now if we sunk all of the Shuttle money into Saturn V's
Wherever You Go, There You Are
If the rocket is heading towards an extinct volcano, I suspect Blofeld.
Soyuz has killed its own astronauts. Progress is an unmanned Soyuz.
Crew Dragon and Falcon will kill astronauts too. Much as I cheer for SpaceX and hope for a wonderful future, this really is rocket science and people will die. That is the price we pay.
Bruce Perens.
Nobody's going to say it? Oh, ok then, I'll do it.
That's progress for you!
The first big test is next week. They will do a crew escape test from a scaffold, rather than a rocket, with the Crew Dragon getting away from an assumed "exploding rocket" on its Super Draco thrusters, and landing safely for the presumed crew. I doubt the capsule is reusable for much other than drop tests after an escape, and soft ground landings for the capsule are not scheduled to be a feature until well after the start of its manned use.
There will be a full escape test after this, perhaps later this year, in which the rocket is launched and the capsule escapes at Max-Q. Something like the "Little Joe II" test for the Saturn 5 when I was a kid.
Bruce Perens.
Which is why China may well become a future leading nation in manned space research. When America loses a few astronauts, they shut down the program for the best part of a decade and spend hundreds of millions in investigation and refinement. When China loses someone, they'll carry on with the next launch while investigating quietly, then hold a ceremony to remember the patriotic sacrifice and remind the people what those lives were risked for.
Modded up by somebody but contradicted by the facts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.... After the loss of Challenger there was a gap of 2 years 8 months until the next Shuttle launch. After the loss of Columbia there was a gap of 2 years 6 months until the next Shuttle launch. Neither of which qualifies as "the best part of a decade". Prudent amounts of time to do the investigation of failure of such a complex and expensive system and implement changes to reasonably reduce risk of another loss going forward. Even during the space race days of Apollo when greater risks were accepted, the gap between the planned launch of Apollo 1 and the actual flight of Apollo 7 was 1 year 8 months. Anyone who tries to go quicker or tries to cheap out on the investigation after a loss is likely to lose another crew shortly thereafter which will really shut a program down.
Umm, Apollo had two failures (1 & 13). Out of 17 Apollos (not all of which carried crew). So a failure rate of 11% or so....
As opposed to Shuttle's failure rate (two shuttles of 133 flights) of 1.5%.
Admittedly, Soyuz also had two failures, of 117 flights (as I recall - could be off by a few), which amounted to a failure rate of 1.7% or so.
Oh, look! Shuttle had a lower failure rate than either Apollo or Soyuz! How is that possible?!
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"