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INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION Supply work shifts to Russia
By David Filipov, Globe Staff, 2/3/2003
Yesterday's scheduled launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan came as a timely and pointed reminder that with the US shuttle fleet grounded pending investigation of the Columbia crash, the financially strapped and oft-maligned Russian space program suddenly provides the only lifeline to the space station and its crew. That fact focused worldwide attention on what normally would have been a routine launch for the Progress M-47 craft. Russian mission control spokesman Nikolai Kryuchkov said the cargo ship was scheduled to dock with the orbiting station tomorrow, bringing fuel, equipment, food, and mail to the station's American crewmembers, Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit, and Russian commander, Nikolai Budarin.
Most of the Russian officials who spoke yesterday expressed grief for the six Americans and one Israeli who died when the Columbia disintegrated over Texas on Saturday morning. The official condolences from Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and senior space officials were joined by ordinary citizens, some of whom placed flowers and wreaths on a snowbank outside the US Embassy in Moscow yesterday. But some Russian space officials also acknowledged that the disaster presented an opportunity for a space program that has lost prestige and funding since the heyday of the Soviet Union -- if Moscow's cash-strapped program is able to meet the heightened demand and pressure to deliver crews and supplies to the station. Cosmonaut Yuri Usachev, who commanded the International Space Station's second crew in 2001, said he and his colleagues in the Russian space program had suffered a ''personal loss.'' ''I believe yesterday's tragedy will have a big influence on the future of the International Space Station,'' Usachev told Russian TVS television. ''Most likely, for a certain amount of time the emphasis will shift to Russian systems for delivery of cargo and crews.'' An unnamed senior space official quoted by the newspaper Izvestia was less circumspect, saying: ''This will strengthen the role of Russia in the International Space Station project.'' NASA plans had called for expanding the International Space Station during five shuttle flights this year. Russian space officials said Saturday they were ready to pick up the slack with their own spacecraft, including manned Soyuz TMA capsules. The trouble is not the safety of the Russian craft -- Moscow's manned space program has suffered only two fatal accidents, the last in 1971 when three cosmonauts died in their Soyuz craft, which lost air pressure shortly before landing. One Soviet cosmonaut died in 1967 when his craft crashed after the parachute tangled during landing. But because the Soyuz spacecraft, unlike the US space shuttles, are single-use ships, Russia would need to build more than the two it normally sends up to the station for short resupply visits. At the moment, Russian space agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov said yesterday, Russia has two Soyuz craft, and one is currently attached to the space station as a ''lifeboat'' to ferry the crew to earth should anything go wrong. The trouble with building more rockets is cash. Russia reluctantly ditched its Mir space station in the Pacific Ocean in 2001, long after numerous onboard accidents and mishaps had reduced the pride of the Soviet space program to the butt of international space jalopy jokes -- unfairly, Russian space officials believe. Since then, the Russian space program has redirected what resources it has -- the amount is a state secret but officials say it is never enough -- toward the 16-nation International Space Station. To drum up extra funds, Russia has resorted to taking ''space tourists'' to the station. Taking on a larger role would mean stretching the budget even more. ''To speak of shifting the center of gravity from the shuttles to our ships requires one major condition: if the money can be found,'' said cosmonaut Valeri Baberdin. The Progress cargo ship launched yesterday is carrying enough food and supplies to keep the station's three-person crew in orbit for two months longer than their scheduled March departure. Material from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.
This story ran on page A5 of the Boston Globe on 2/3/2003.
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© Copyright 2003 New York Times Company |
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OSCOW -- An unmanned Russian cargo ship laden with supplies for the International Space Station lifted off successfully yesterday as Russian space officials offered condolences for the seven crew members of the Columbia and pondered new challenges facing their own star-crossed space program.
