Ignacio Ortega
Moscow, 2 nov (EFE).-Russia regained the prominence space thanks to the retirement of the ferries us in crisis of its programme of releases, with repeated failures that cast doubt on its ability to supply the platform orbital.
“The Soyuz are absolutely reliable.” We have not ceased to evolve. The Russian ships guarantee all the needs of the international space station (ISS) “, assured Efe Vitali DavÃdov, Deputy Director of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos).
“
Half a century after the feat of the first Cosmonaut of history (1961), Yuri Gagarin, the Soyuz piloted ships they again assumed the leadership of the space race, while U.S. takes a breather and China continues to make progress in solo.
“It is true that we won’t relay for several years and this is a big responsibility, but we have about thirty Soyuz and cargo Progress in operation or under construction,” commented.
DavÃdov responded well to the reservations raised by some American experts about the dangers of the Soyuz not available in the coming years of alternative on their voyages to the orbital platform after landing in July of the shuttle Atlantis.
Russian ships, which suffered two disasters with casualties in 1967–on its first manned flight – and 1971, which killed four cosmonauts have not registered any serious accident since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
While fourteen American astronauts were killed in the explosion of the shuttle Challenger in 1986, and Columbia in 2003.
However, everything is turned with the accident at the end of August by the cargo ship Progress 12-M, which crashed shortly after take-off and just when these automatic buildings depended fully on the operation of the ISS.
Although it is true that it was its first crash in more than 30 years of history of the Russian Progress concern spread in Russia, NASA and also in the own orbital, platform which hosted then six tenants.
Roscosmos leggy to deny that the accident could endanger life on the space station, but by caution suspended launches of rockets carrying Soyuz and changed the schedule of flights for the next few months.
This he joined loss in December 2010 of three satellites of the Russian orbital navigation system GLONASS, called to compete with the American GPS and cost him the post to the previous head of Roscosmos.
Automatic interplanetary station Phobos-Grunt, called to be the first to settle on the surface of one of the moons of Mars to collect Martian dust, was released on November 8, but could not leave Earth’s orbit.
Today experts have failed to re-establish contact with the station, which intended to study the early solar system matter and that could fall on the Earth at the beginning of the next year.
Of Ãgor Lisov, director of the magazine “News of Cosmonautics” opinion is that the station was designed and built with serious defects. “From the command system to supply and no programme took into account the communication with the spacecraft in low orbits”.
Lisov explains that between the fall of the USSR and 2007 the Russian space program “had State funding below the minimum of subsistence”, and that the recent increase of the investment will not notice the quality of the work up within five years.
Added to this is: “the ageing of the specialists, obsolescence of equipment, the cessation of the production of some components and materials, and the stoppage in certain fields of cosmonautics”, added.
After numerous delays and meticulous testing, Russia resumed in late October releases Progress with 2.5 load vital to the astronauts of the ISS, which was greeted with relief by the whole world.
To be confirmed that the rocket Soyuz-U carrier worked normally, launched the Soyuz TMA-22 with three crew members on board, which is acoplaron to the platform in November, so everything returned to normal in the orbital platform.EFE
