Soyuz space flight resuming from November 14
Submitted by Sam Ross on September 17, 2011 - 12:28pm
On 15th September NASA announced that the Russian officials have identified the source of the failure and it will not affect future launches. The clearance means the mission that was suspended earlier of carrying three crew members to ISS will now takes place. International Space Station will now continue its 10 year human presence streak after the crew members will be transported.
In a statement, International Space Station program manager Michael Suffredini said, “Our Russian colleagues have completed an amazing amount of work in a very short time to determine root cause and develop a recovery plan that allows for a safe return to flight.”
NASA has retired all its shuttles and is now dependent on Russia Soyuz crafts to carry men and supplies to the orbiting lab. But, Soyuz craft that has a successful flight record was crashed over Siberia on August 24. Soyuz progress 44 spacecraft was boarded with food and supplies for the space station but, after the crash all scheduled Soyuz fights were suspended for indefinite period.
NASA and Russian space officials were once considering abandoning ISS if Soyuz could not bear out safe for the next crew launce to ISS. After the clearance crew and supply transportation is set to resume. Suffredini said, “Our top priority is the safety of our crew members. The plan approved today, coupled with the conditions on orbit, allow the partnership to support this priority while ensuring astronauts will continue to live and work on the station uninterrupted.”
ISS crew members
Three crew members of ISS have already returned home earlier this week, whereas Mike Fossum of NASA, Satoshi Furukawa of Japan and Sergei Volkov of Russia are scheduled to return on 22 November. NASA's Dan Burbank and Russia's Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov are docking on 16 November in ISS.
Suffredini said, “We'll have a longer period of three-person operations and a shorter than usual handover between the next two crews, but we are confident that the crews will be able to continue valuable research and execute a smooth crew transition.”
