Russia suspends the launch of Soyuz rockets

Russia decided to suspend the launch of Soyuz rockets after the accident of a Russian cargo ship launched to the International Space Station (ISS), which failed to reach the proper orbit and crashed into Earth.
"This decision was taken until the cause of the accident are established," said an official Thursday, 25 August Space, according to the Interfax news agency.

FAILURE IN THE SYSTEM OF ENGINE
The Russian cargo spacecraft Progress M-M12, which was carrying a cargo of several tons, took off at 17 hours (15 hours in Paris) Wednesday on a Soyuz-U, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and was moored Friday at the ISS.

According to the Russian Space Agency (Roskosmos), Progress M-M12 did not reach its proper orbit after a malfunction in the system of the engines, and crashed. Its fragments fell into an unpopulated area in the Russian region of Altai, on the border of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. A search of the remains of Russian cargo ship was underway Thursday in this region.

SERIOUS SETBACKS FOR RUSSIA

The Russian Space Flight Control (TSOUP) immediately ensured that there was sufficient reserves to supply the astronauts on the ISS until the arrival of the next Progress and excluded a possible evacuation of the crew of station.

Roskosmos, however, removed from its website all information about future missions to the ISS. Thus, the announcement of the next manned flight to the ISS scheduled for September 22 and the launching of another Russian cargo spacecraft scheduled for October 28 is no longer on the site. Both releases should be made using a Soyuz rocket.

For Russia, the loss of the cargo ship Progress, a first since 1978 according to the Interfax news agency, is a serious setback, especially since the incidents have multiplied in recent months, with five failures in launches in nine months. Moscow last week lost a powerful communications satellite, launched by a Proton also from Baikonur. The craft was found on the wrong orbit and it is unlikely that Russia can recover it. In December 2010, three Glonass satellites launched from a Proton rocket fell back into the Pacific Ocean after the failure of their orbit, caused by a fuel surcharge in the launcher.

The suspension of flights of Soyuz rocket, legendary reliability, fell ill a few months the first launch of one of these machines the French base in Kourou (French Guiana) for flights operated by Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA). It also happens at the worst time for the ISS, which has lost the largest of its tankers: the U.S. space shuttle program, which just ended with a final flight to the station in July.

Source lemonde.fr