The current crew at the station is scheduled to return in December and could stay there until January at most * If the Soyuz is not returned to service, they could leave the station empty for the first time since 2000
For the first time since the establishment of the space station, it was left without means of transportation, with the freezing of Soyuz flights until further notice following the serious malfunction that occurred on Thursday, when the passenger compartment was ejected from the Soyuz launcher with the American Mike Hague and the Russian Alexey Ovechinin inside, and a ballistic landing about 500 km from northeast of the launch site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
As mentioned, the two landed in good condition, despite the tremors they suffered due to the forces of gravity that prevailed during the forced landing and did not require any medical treatment. However, the Russian space agency Roscosmos immediately announced the suspension of manned launches pending a comprehensive investigation into the sources of the malfunction.
As a result, it may be necessary to leave the station unmanned within a few months, when the current crew members will finish their shift and be forced to return to Earth in the Soyuz parked on the station. If this happens, it will be the first time the station will remain unmanned since it began being inhabited in November 2000. The Soyuz launcher and Soyuz spacecraft have also been used by NASA to send astronauts to the space station since the space shuttles retired in 2011.
It is not clear how long the Russian investigation will continue on behalf of all member countries of the International Space Station - European countries, the US, Canada and Japan.
Three astronauts are currently staying at the station - Serena Union-Chancellor from NASA, Alexander Gerst from the European Space Agency, and Sergei Prokofiev from Russia. The three are scheduled to return to Earth in December and have enough food, water and supplies until then. Therefore, within two months the station could be vacated.
NASA, the European Space Agency and Roscosmos may only extend the mission of the current crew members by a few weeks, because the Soyuz spacecraft are designed to stay in orbit for a maximum of 200 days, which means that at best they will return in January. Ground controllers in Houston and Moscow will be able to keep the station alive even without humans team but this ability is also limited.
The American alternative to shuttles, the manned spaceships built by the private companies SpaceX and Boeing are still in the construction and testing stages and will be ready to fly passengers no earlier than mid-2019.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two crew members made an emergency landing in Kazakhstan after a launcher malfunction; They are in good condition
- Boeing's first spacecraft will take off in 2017 on a test flight to the International Space Station (news from 2014)
- Boeing and SpaceX win NASA tender to fly astronauts to space station
2 תגובות
The International Space Station has been around for 20 years and has determined the human space programs around
Earth
So far, over 100 billion dollars have been invested in the station
If all due respect to the scientific experiments, and there is respect, they should have continued the momentum after the trips to the moon, to build a station around the moon, or beyond it to one of the Lagrange points, and continue the exploration of the moon by astronauts.
Imagine that 500 years ago the King of Spain would have told Columbus that instead of crossing the ocean
Build a trading station in the Azores and I will have a regular line there.
Water, the finger moved one key to the left by mistake