Medvedev suggests prosecution for Russia space failure

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev speaks to a group of Russian regional journalists in the Gorki residence outside Moscow, November 26, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Mikhail Klimentyev/Ria Novosti/Kremlin (

MOSCOW | Sat Nov 26, 2011 10:19am EST

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev raised the prospect of criminal prosecution for space mishaps on Saturday following a series of failed launches that have embarrassed Russia.

Earlier this month, a probe designed to bring back soil samples from the Mars moon Phobos got stuck in Earth's orbit, leaving Russia's first interplanetary mission in years with almost no chance of success.

The probe failure came less than three months after a cargo ship carrying food and fuel to the International Space Station burned up in the atmosphere shortly after launch.

"Recent failures are a strong blow to our competitiveness. It does not mean that something fatal has happened, it means that we need to carry out a detailed review and punish those guilty," Medvedev told reporters in televised comments.

"I am not suggesting putting them up against the wall like under Josef Vissarionovich (Stalin), but seriously punish either financially or, if the fault is obvious, it could be a disciplinary or even criminal punishment," he said.

Medvedev has recently made similar calls for strict punishment after disasters blamed on carelessness, corruption and problems with Russia's rusty infrastructure, such as a riverboat sinking in July that killed 122.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Steve Gutterman and Sophie Hares)

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Russian Rocket Failure Shouldn’t Force Space Station Evacuation, NASA Tells Lawmakers (SPACE.com)

The International Space Station likely won't have to be evacuated despite the recent failure of a Russian rocket launched toward the orbiting lab, a panel told U.S. lawmakers today (Oct. 12) on Capitol Hill.

On Aug. 24, Russia's Progress 44 cargo vessel crashed in Siberia after the third stage of its Soyuz rocket failed. That rocket is similar to the one NASA and other space agencies depend on to loft astronauts, raising doubts about whether the issue could be fixed in time for a new crew to get to the station before its three remaining residents depart for Earth on Nov. 22.

A Russian commission recently pinpointed the Soyuz problem as a quality-control issue, not a major design flaw. And an independent NASA team agrees with that assessment, officials announced today, meaning the next manned Soyuz launch should take place as planned on Nov. 14. [Photos: Russia's Lost Cargo Ship Progress 44]

That time frame would keep the orbiting outpost staffed, giving the new three-person crew about five days to learn the ropes from the departing space flyers.

"NASA's confident that our Russian partners identified the most likely failure cause and has a sound return-to-flight plan," Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's human exploration and operations directorate, told members of the House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

Fixing the problem

The Russian investigation determined that low fuel feed to the gas generator in the Soyuz's third-stage engine likely caused the Progress 44 crash. The fuel feed issue may have been caused by contamination in the fuel line or a valve.

After consulting in depth with the Russians, NASA formed its own team to look into the Soyuz problem, Gerstenmaier said.

"They did kind of a background check to make sure that the conclusions the Russians were drawing were reasonable," Gerstenmaier said. "We completed that review today within the agency, and we agree with the basic Russian findings."

Since the Progress 44 incident, the Russians have boosted their quality-control efforts, Gerstenmaier added. For example, they've increased the number of people inspecting Soyuz rockets and are videotaping some key assembly operations at the factory.

The engines for the next two Soyuz launches — the unmanned Progress 45 cargo mission on Oct. 30 and the Nov. 14 crewed mission — were built under the newer, stricter oversight, Gerstenmaier said. [Vote Now! The Best Spaceships of All Time]

So the problem that doomed Progress 44 shouldn't crop up again, the panelists said.

"We're confident that the two launches anticipated — one of Progress and the Soyuz launch, hopefully, in mid-November — will put the current issues to rest and return us to a steady-state operation," said Joseph Dyer, chairman of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.

Station could operate without a crew

When it's fully crewed, the International Space Station (ISS) harbors six astronauts, who each stay aboard for five- or six-month stints. It currently hosts just three space flyers, and the next Soyuz launch would basically replenish this number rather than increase it.

If that launch gets delayed, the station would be completely de-staffed for the first time in more than a decade. But that wouldn't spell disaster for the orbiting lab, the panelists said.

"The station itself can be flown uncrewed from Mission Control," Gerstenmaier said.

Of course, NASA and its international partners would much prefer to keep the orbiting lab fully staffed. Crew members on board can fix maintenance or servicing issues that crop up, for example, which can't be done from the ground.

And with more crew members aboard the station, more scientific research can get done. On a fully de-staffed station, some experiments could go on as before, such as the recently installed $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which is hunting dark matter, antimatter and cosmic rays.

But many other projects would have to be dropped, or at least postponed, without astronauts on board to conduct them. And NASA hopes it doesn't come to that, officials have said.

"If the ISS needed to be de-crewed, the largest impact would obviously be to crew-tended research," Gerstenmaier said.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Rocket failure exposes space station vulnerability

The International Space Station is seen through the docking port of the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis as it departs the station in this still image taken from NASA TV on July 19, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/NASA/Handout

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Thu Sep 8, 2011 12:44pm EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - When a Russian rocket failed on its way to orbit last month, it exposed a vulnerability in the International Space Station program that a former NASA astronaut thinks China could help address.

The August 24 failure of the Russian Progress rocket prompted NASA and its partners in the $100 billion space station project to delay launch of the next crew until the cause of the failure is found, fixed and tested.

The cause of the accident is under investigation after the unmanned rocket burned up in the atmosphere and debris fell onto parts of Siberia. The Progress rocket, which was carrying a cargo capsule of food and fuel, and the Soyuz booster that carries crew use nearly identical upper-stage motors.

Half of the station's six live-aboard crew members are due home next week and their colleagues will follow by November 19. The dates were determined by the design lifetimes of the Soyuz capsules already in orbit -- which do not use rockets to return to Earth -- and other technical factors.

If a new crew is not launched by mid-November, the station could be left untended for the first time in 11 years.

Former U.S. astronaut Leroy Chiao, a four-time flyer who served as commander of the space station from October 2004 to April 2005, says leaving the station unmanned raises the odds it could tumble from orbit.

"There are a number of relatively small mistakes or glitches that could cause you to loose attitude control," Chiao told Reuters, referring to how engineers maintain the space station's position in orbit.

UNLIKELY SCENARIO

Without good pointing, the station's antennas might not be able to lock on to satellites and ground stations needed to communicate with mission control centers.

NASA says that scenario is highly unlikely and the station would be safe even if it had to be left unmanned for a short time.

"You're talking about multiple, multiple failures," station program manager Mike Suffredini told Reuters. "You'd have to lose a lot of equipment and even then (the station) doesn't start spinning wildly. It drifts."

Eventually, ground control teams could regain control of the station by switching to omni-directional antennas or waiting until the outpost flies over Russian ground stations, Suffredini said.

With the retirement of the U.S. space shuttles this summer, crews can reach the station only aboard Russian rockets. China, the only other country able to fly people into orbit, is not a partner in the space station.

Chiao said it was time for that to change to ensure the integrity of the recently completed project of 16 nations that is designed to operate at least through 2020 as a unique gravity-free scientific research outpost.

"I think (China) is the fastest route to a backup vehicle for the space station," he said.

The current U.S. plan is to pay Russia to fly NASA astronauts, at a cost of more than $50 million per person, until U.S. companies are able to do so.

Several firms -- including Boeing Co, Space Exploration Technologies, Sierra Nevada Corp and Blue Origin -- are designing commercial passenger spaceships, helped in part by NASA contracts worth a total of $92 million.

Suffredini said Chiao was underestimating the amount of time and complexity needed to bring China into the space station partnership, even if political winds shifted and the proposal gained momentum.

"Just because they built a system that's like the Soyuz doesn't mean you can dock it with the space station," he said.

NASA administrator Charlie Bolden said he thinks Russia will be able to resume Soyuz flights before the last of the current crew departs in November.

"The possibility of de-manning station is always something you think about but it's not something that's high on my list of concerns right now," Bolden said.

(Editing by Tom Brown and John O'Callaghan)

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