Space administrators were forced for the second time in six months to abandon an attempt to resupply the International Space Station after a mishap left an unmanned Russian supply craft spinning uselessly in space.
The decision came on Wednesday after Russian controllers failed to establish contact with the Progress 59 cargo craft after it reached space following a successful launch on Tuesday from Kazakhstan.
The failure follows the destruction of a previous resupply module last October when the Antares rocket due to carry it to the International Space Station exploded on a launch pad in Virginia.
Although Nasa, the US space agency, stressed that astronauts aboard the space station had enough spare supplies to survive through the second mishap, the incident underlines the fragility of the technology being used.
“Docking has been called off for the Progress 59 spacecraft,” Nasa said in a statement on Wednesday. “Russian flight controllers are continuing to assess the vehicle and what the plan going forward will be. Additional information will be provided as it becomes available.”
Both Wednesday’s mishap and the launch explosion on October 28 in Virginia involved technology associated with Russia’s cash-starved space programme. Ronald Grabe, an executive of Orbital ATK, the company that operated the October 28 flight, said two weeks ago that the explosion appeared to have resulted from excessive wear in one of the Antares rocket’s engines. The rockets use old engines produced for Russia’s abortive space shuttle programme.
The latest mishap appears to have happened as the resupply craft separated from the upper stage of the rocket, which had carried it from Kazakhstan, leaving the craft spinning in orbit. The US Air Force’s Joint Space Operations Centre said it had observed an “anomaly” following the launch, that the craft was spinning 360 degrees every five second, and that there were 44 pieces of space debris around it.
American astronaut Scott Kelly (left) and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko
The debris suggests there was either a collision between the separating stages or an explosion.
“We will continue to monitor the situation and work with our government [and] international and industry partners, to ensure the safety of the astronauts onboard the ISS and [to] provide for the long-term safety, sustainability, security and stability of the space domain,” Lt Gen Jay Raymond, the centre’s commander, said.
The US staged a successful resupply mission to the space station on April 14, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched a Dragon spacecraft to the outpost. However, the US has had no independent means of sending crew to the space station since the space shuttle
Loren Thompson, an analyst with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said the failures showed the US had allowed its civil space launch capabilities to become “fragile”.
“Our ability to get to space has become attenuated,” Mr Thompson said.
The crew on the International Space Station is currently made up of three Russians, one Italian and two Americans. Among the Americans is Scott Kelly, an experienced astronaut spending a year in space as part of an experiment comparing him with his twin brother Mark, a former astronaut who is remaining on earth.
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