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Russia Delays Launch of Next ISS Crew, Report Says
By Associated Press
posted: 23 January 2006
11:58 am ET
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next manned mission to the international space station
by one week, to March 30, a spokesman said Monday according to the ITAR-Tass
news agency.
The launch, which had been
scheduled for March 22, is to carry Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov,
American Jeffery Williams and Brazilian Marcos Cesar Pontes.
The report cited Roskosmos
spokesman Vyacheslav Davidenko as saying that the launch was postponed because
problems were discovered with elements of the spacecraft's control system, and
that parts would have to be replaced and fully tested.
The delay also means that
the launch of an unmanned Progress supply ship, which had been planned for the
first quarter of the year, would be put off until April 24, the report said.
Russia's Soyuz crew
capsules and unmanned Progress cargo ships have been the international space
station's lifeline since the U.S. space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. The
U.S. shuttle program was suspended for more than two years; the shuttle
Discovery flew to the space station in July, but problems with its insulation
raised doubts about when the next shuttle would go into space.
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