Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Russian spaceship docking with ISS postponed indefinitely

The docking of the launched on Tuesday morning Progress M-27M cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) has been indefinitely postponed, a rocket and space industry source told TASS.


"The spacecraft is currently very quickly and uncontrollably turning on its axis, one turn in just several seconds. The Mission Control Centre’s commands are not reaching the spacecraft and telemetric data are also transmitted erratically," the source said.

"The docking, originally planned for Aril 30, has been postponed indefinitely," he said.
Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said earlier on Tuesday that it was planned to switch the Progress spaceship flight from a six-hour to two-day scheme (the spacecraft was initially planned to dock to the ISS on Tuesday afternoon).

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Progress resupply vehicle was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome (Kazakhstan) on Tuesday morning. After that the spacecraft was failing to transmit telemetric data and also missed the target orbit. 

A Russian space industry source told TASS that the Progress spacecraft failed to deploy two antennas of the Kurs docking navigation system.

Another source said that the antenna failure might be caused by anything: "possibly, something has got there - causing a mechanical glitch, or the signal fails to pass somewhere through the circuit." He said the Kurs navigation system is used for the approach and docking to the ISS. "Antennas of this system transmit information about the distance to the station, attitude rates. Docking with the station is conducted in an automatic mode based on this information," the source said.
  http://tass.ru/en/non-political/792256
28/4/15
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3 comments:

  1. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were left with a long wait Tuesday to get their latest food and fuel deliveries after an unmanned Russian supply ship lost communications following takeoff...

    The ISS crew won't actually be in danger of going hungry - the ­station has plenty of supplies - but the ­Progress supply craft's normal six-hour voyage has been extended to two days.

    And even then, the wait may not be over: With the Progress circling Earth in radio silence Tuesday, it could be just days before it runs out of fuel and starts an uncontrolled ­descent back into to the atmosphere.

    Russian mission control said that the Progress' problems began soon after launch.

    "The ship reached orbit but the full volume of telemetry (data transmissions) is not being received," a spokesman said.

    As a result, the controllers had opted to change the flight plan and extend the vessel's usually brief journey of six hours to two full days.

    The mission control website ­stated later Tuesday that the ship would dock with the ISS, where the international crew of six people awaits the cargo, on Thursday.

    NASA said however that the ship was not responding, and the extra time would be used for ­"trouble-shooting of rendezvous antenna deployment" which is necessary for the docking to the station.....AFP....globaltimes.cn
    28/4/15

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  2. Attempt to contact Progress cargo spacecraft fails...

    Russia’s Mission Control Centre failed to get telemetric data from the Progress M-27M cargo spacecraft during its first communication session on Wednesday, a rocket and space industry source told TASS.

    "The attempt was unsuccessful," the source said, adding that the centre would make another attempt to get telemetry from the spacecraft at 05:00 Moscow time.

    TASS reported on Thursday that Russian specialists on Wednesday were expected to use a remote control mode of operation in order to stop the spacecraft’s erratic rotation,

    The Mission Control Centre declined to comment on Wednesday’s communication session.

    A Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress M-27M spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur space site in Kazakhstan at on Tuesday morning. After its separation from the rocket, the Mission Control Centre said no telemetry was available. A source in the space industry told TASS that two antennas of Progress’s docking system Kurs had failed to unfold. Soon it turned out that the spacecraft itself had entered an undesignated orbit due to a mishap in one of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket’s stages.
    http://tass.ru/en/russia/792339
    29/4/15

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  3. US Air Force detects 44 debris of ‘unknown origin’ close to Russian cargo ship...

    The personnel of the Joint Space Operations Center at the US Vandenberg Air Force base in California detected 44 debris of unknown origin in orbit close to Russia’s Progress space ship, Center Chief Lieut.-Gen. Jay Raymond said on Wednesday.

    The US specialists have failed to establish the origin of the debris so far, he said.........http://tass.ru/en/non-political/792396
    29/4/15

    ReplyDelete

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