Russian Progress Cargo Spacecraft Crashes in Eastern Russia After Failing to Find Orbit

[EmperorScorpious]

[QUOTE]Too bad the shuttles are shuttered. A Russian Progress cargo spaceship bound for the ISS crashed in eastern Russia this morning after failing to reach orbit. After launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrom in Kazakhstan in the wee hours today the spacecraft encountered some kind of trouble--Russian broadcaster RT said “engine trouble,” but that could mean a lot of things--and plummeted back to Earth with the nearly four tons of food, fuel, oxygen, and other supplies it was taking up to the International Space Station.

Investigators are on the scene trying to figure out the precise cause of the crash. It’s the second failed launch in a month for Roskosmos, which failed to put the Express communications satellite into the proper orbit after launching it aboard a Proton rocket from Baikonur on August 18.

We’re not yet sure how this effects the crew aboard the ISS, but we’ll update if/when more information becomes available.

[img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/Progress_M-52.jpeg[/img][/QUOTE]

Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-08/video-russian-progress-spacecraft-crashes-eastern-russia-after-failing-find-orbit[/url]

[ewitwins]

*sigh*

And that just summed up the entire Russian space program in a single crash.

[ayay]

As if space travel needed any more negative publicity.

[Chernobyl426]

Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan. COD:Black Ops was real. It begins....

[CabooseRvB]

It probably contained porn rations for the ISS crew.

Those poor cosmonauts

[Glaber]

I"m beginning to hope that they at least have a good enough shuttle to get everybody back home at least. What with Obama's Cancellation of the US Space Program.

[EmperorScorpious]

[QUOTE=Glaber;31926378]I"m beginning to hope that they at least have a good enough shuttle to get everybody back home at least. What with Obama's Cancellation of the US Space Program.[/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure only the Shuttle Program is done. I don't think he closed down all of NASA.

[ewitwins]

[QUOTE=Glaber;31926378]I"m beginning to hope that they at least have a good enough shuttle to get everybody back home at least. What with Obama's Cancellation of the US Space Program.[/QUOTE]

Not so much cancellation, more like "horrendous budget cuts".

[ASmellyOgre]

[QUOTE=Glaber;31926378]I"m beginning to hope that they at least have a good enough shuttle to get everybody back home at least. What with Obama's Cancellation of the US Space Program.[/QUOTE]

He only ended Bush's horribly misguided Constellation Program and closed the antiquated Shuttle Program after decades of delays. Obama then started deep-space flight testing, an asteroid redirection program, planning for a Mars mission, and NASA started the [url=http://www.100yss.org/]100-Year-Starship Program[/url] and continues with its scientific probes. Thanks to Obama, NASA is properly going into the future, as opposed to being bogged down by useless and expensive moon missions.

[editline]24th August 2011[/editline]

As for the topic at hand, I'm not worried. ISS shuttling is moving into SpaceX's more-than-capable hands.

[Aegis]

Wonder if that 20 mach death jet DARPA sent up to space a few weeks ago had anything to do with it.

[kaine123]

Whatever, this happens to me all the time in Kerbal Space Program. They just forgot to add a parachute module.