US sign $1Bn contract for Russian RD-181 rocket engines for US Antares Launcher

Deespite US sanctions against Russia, Russian manufacturer, Energia, announced on Friday a $1 billion deal to supply engines for the US Antares rockets making deliveries to the International Space Station.

Energia said in a statement that it had signed the bumper deal to build 60 engines with private US firm Orbital Science, which has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to supply the space station.

Deliveries of the new RD-181 engines would start in June, the statement said.

The agreement comes after an Orbital Science rocket suffered a catastrophic engine failure in October, forcing an end to its supply missions until further notice.

An unmanned Antares rocket packed with thousands of pounds of gear for astronauts exploded seconds after lift-off in the US, costing the company some $200 million.

The company said after the accident that a suspected rocket engine failure led a control operator to detonate the rocket in order to prevent damage to people in the area.

The firm pledged a speedy upgrade to its systems after saying that the engines used to power the Antares rocket were a pair of decades-old Ukrainian-designed AJ-26s, that were refurbished by Aerojet Rocketdyne.

The International Space Station is a rare area of US-Russian cooperation that has not been hit by the crisis in Ukraine, which has prompted Washington to impose sanctions on Moscow.

Russian Mystery Space Object 2014-28E an Orbital Weapon

Orbits of debris generated one month after a 2007 Chinese anti-satellite test; the white orbit represents the International Space Station. 

In May 2014, Russia launched a mystery object that some experts say could be an anti-satellite weapon.

Credit: NASA Orbital Debris Program Office

The orbital maneuvers of a mysterious object Russia launched earlier this year have raised concerns that the satellite may be a space weapon of some sort.

The speculation centers on "Object 2014-28E," which Russia lofted along with three military communications satellites in May.

The object was originally thought to be space junk, but satellite trackers have watched it perform a number of interesting maneuvers over the past few weeks, the Financial Times reported Monday (Nov. 17).

Last weekend, for example, 2014-28E apparently met up with the remnants of a rocket stage that helped the object reach orbit.

As a result, some space analysts wonder if Object 2014-28E could be part of an anti-satellite program, perhaps a revived version of the Cold War-era "Istrebitel Sputnikov" ("satellite killer") project, which Russian officials have said was retired when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s.

Military officials have long regarded the ability to destroy or disable another country's satellites as a key national-security capability.

The Soviet Union is not the only nation known to have worked on developing such technology; China destroyed one of its own weather satellites in a 2007 test that spawned a huge cloud of orbital debris, and the United States blew up one of its own defunct spacecraft in 2008.

The concern about Object 2014-28E is legitimate, said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, but she cautioned against jumping to conclusions, saying that Russia could have a number of purposes in mind for the technology that 2014-28E may be testing out.

"Any satellite with the capability to maneuver has the potential to be a weapon," Johnson-Freese told reporters. "But does that mean necessarily that all maneuverable satellites are weapons? No."

The United States has also worked to develop maneuverable-satellite technology, she noted, citing the Air Force's Experimental Satellite System-11 (XSS-11) and NASA's DART (Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology) spacecraft, both of which launched in 2005.

Further, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) managed a mission called Orbital Express, which launched in 2007 to test out satellite-servicing tech.

"When we did DART and XSS-11, other countries went into panic mode — you know, 'The U.S. has space weapons,'" Johnson-Freese said.

"The first thing we did was assuage those concerns and say, 'No, no. That's not what it is. It's just a maneuverable satellite.' But any time you have dual-use technology, there are going to be concerns."

And pretty much all space technology is dual-use, said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser with the Secure World Foundation (a nonprofit organization dedicated to space sustainability) and a former orbital analyst with the Air Force.

For example, spacecraft capable of orbital rendezvous operations could help a nation inspect, service and refuel its satellites, or de-orbit defunct craft to help mitigate the growing space-junk problem.

Weeden thinks it's unlikely that Object 2014-28E is up to anything nefarious.

"The activities are much more in line with an inspection mission than with any sort of destruction mission," he told reporters.

The secrecy surrounding the spacecraft helps fuel speculation about its mission, as does the fact that U.S.-Russian relations have deteriorated in the wake of Russia's military intervention in Ukraine this year, Weeden said.

"I think if this had happened in a different context, the speculation would be different," Weeden said.

"But because it's occurring in the context of heightened tensions, there's more of a proclivity to assume the worst."




Russia likely regards Object 2014-28E's mission as a national-security activity in space, he added. The secrecy is thus unsurprising, as Russia tends to keep a tight lid on such missions as a matter of policy.

And Russian officials may be happy to keep quiet and let the mystery and speculation continue to build, Johnson-Freese said.

"I think that anything the Russians can do to provoke the United States right now, their government is supportive of," she said. "If this can cause concern in the United States, they're all for it."

Russia's Cosmos 2495: Fiery Fall of Russian Spy Satellite Debris

A global network of skywatching detectives has pieced together the strange story of a Russian military spy satellite that re-entered Earth's atmosphere earlier this month, the leftovers of which sparked a spectacular sky show over five U.S. states.

Observers across parts of Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico caught sight of debris from the military satellite via a fireball on Sept. 2 around 10:30 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, reporting their observations to the American Meteor Society.

The focus of attention is Russia's Cosmos 2495, an Earth-imaging reconnaissance (Kobalt-M) satellite. It was a hefty spacecraft, in the Kobalt-M series, a family member of the Yantar chain of Russian satellites. Russia launched the satellite on its intelligence-gathering mission on May 6 of this year. [Photos: Declassified U.S. Spy Satellites]

The resulting fireball from parts of the Cosmos 2495 spysat's re-entry was not only spotted by skywatchers. It was also caught that night by a number of all-sky cameras, including the Cloudbait Observatory  here in the central Colorado Rocky Mountains.

An on-line buzz about the occurrence found a home at SeeSat-L, the mailing list for visual satellite observers, which has become an invaluable tool to study all manner of spacecraft events. So here's what happened with Cosmos 2495.

Satellite tracker Thomas Ashcraft, of Heliotown in Santa Fe, New Mexico, captured this long-exposure view of the brilliant fireball created by debris from a suspected Russian spy satellite on Sept. 2, 2014. 

Credit: Thomas Ashcraft/Heliotown

Graphic shows the actual time and track of the suspected piece of Russian Cosmos 2495 debris in relation to sightings.

Credit: Ted Molczan

Russian spysat falls from space

This multipart Cosmos 2495 consists of an equipment module, an instrument module, a camera re-entry vehicle and a large sun shade with additional antennae and sensors.

It is designed to re-enter Earth's atmosphere so that its camera canister can be retrieved by a recovery crew.

At the end of its mission on Sept. 2, the Russian spysat fired its engine to begin its return to Earth. Its fiery re-entry was witnessed and videoed from a large part of western Kazakhstan.

The module carrying the cargo of exposed film and a reusable camera separated, and is believed to have landed near the city of Orenburg in Russia. The remainder of the spacecraft, meanwhile, burned up as planned.

Now, it appears that the slow-moving fireball spotted over the U.S. on Sept. 2 — some 10 hours after Cosmos 2495's intelligence camera module had safely touched down — was due to a lingering leftover from the Soviet military spacecraft.

Russian Soyuz TMA-14M Capsule Reaches Space Station - Solar Array Deployment Issue

A Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft, with only one of its two solar arrays deployed, is seen nearing the International Space Station on Sept. 25, 2014 (Eastern Time) to deliver three new members of the Expedition 41 crew. 

The stuck solar array did not hinder the Soyuz capsule's single-day trip to the space station.

Credit: NASA TV

A Russian-built Soyuz capsule carrying a crew of three reached the International Space Station late Thursday (Sept. 25), despite a stuck solar array that failed to deploy just after its launch six hours earlier.

The Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft linked up with the station at 10:11 p.m. EDT (0211 GMT) as the two spacecraft sailed high over the Pacific Ocean.

The Soyuz arrived at the space station with American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts, including Elena Serova, the first female cosmonaut ever to visit the International Space Station.

Russia's Soyuz vehicles are three-person spacecraft made up of a crew capsule, orbital module and service module powered by two winglike solar arrays.

Initially, Russian engineers were concerned the stuck solar array would block a radiator and lead to hotter temperatures inside the Soyuz, but the capsule's crew reported all was well, NASA officials said.



The Soyuz clearly had enough power for a smooth docking, despite being at half-capacity.

"The port solar array isn't deployed but the power situation is fine. It just doesn't look good from the point of view of photographs," one of the Soyuz crew said during the docking.

"We're eating and drinking, and we're in good spirits. Everything is as it should be."

The docking occurred just hours after a flawless launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where Serova and her crewmates, NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore and cosmonaut Alexander Samokutyaev, bid farewell to Earth to begin a nearly six-month space mission.

Trio joined three other space travelers already aboard the station: astronaut Reid Wiseman of NASA; Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency; and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suarev, who commands the station's Expedition 41 crew.

That little red streak hidden behind the SpaceX Dragon solar array is the Soyuz launching.

Expedition 41 Space Station Crew Launch Today

NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore (left) and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev (center) and Elena Serova pose with their Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft ahead of a September 2014 launch to the International Space Station.

Credit: RSC Energia

A Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft will launch a new U.S.-Russian crew on a swift six-hour flight to the International Space Station today (Sept. 25), and you can watch the action in space live online.

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft towers over its launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome ahead of a Sept. 26, 2014 local time launch (Sept. 25 Eastern Time). 

The mission will launch the new Expedition 41 crew to the International Space Station.

Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore and cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova are poised to blast off for the space station at 4:25 p.m. EDT (2025 GMT) from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where it will be early Friday morning, Sept. 26, local time.

Serova will make a bit of space history with the launch, when she becomes Russia's fourth female cosmonaut to fly in space and the first Russian woman on the International Space Station.

You can watch the Soyuz launch webcast live on NASA TV, beginning at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT).

NASA will also provide a live webcast of the Soyuz spacecraft's arrival at the space station at 9:45 p.m. EDT (0145 GMT), and another webcast at 11:30 p.m. EDT (0330 GMT) as the Soyuz crew joins the current station residents.

Wilmore, Samokutyaev and Serova will live and work aboard the International Space Station until March 2015, first as part of the outpost's Expedition 41 crew and later as the core of its Expedition 42 crew.

They will join American Reid Wiseman of NASA, Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, who currently live on the station. Wilmore will ultimately command the Expedition 42 crew.

"[I'm] looking forward, actually, to all of it," Wilmore told reporters, adding that he was especially excited about the science and possible spacewalks during the flight. "It's all going to be great and fascinating."

The Soyuz launch today will mark the second spaceflight for Wilmore, 52, who is a captain in the U.S. Navy and hails from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, but this flight will be his first long-duration trip to the space station.

He last visited the orbiting laboratory in 2009 as the pilot of space shuttle Atlantis during NASA's STS-129 mission, and spent nearly 11 days in orbit.

Cosmonaut Alexander Samokutyaev, 44, is the only veteran of long-duration spaceflight on the Soyuz crew launching today.

He last visited the space station in 2011 as part of its Expedition 27/28 crew, and spent 164 days in space. Samokutyaev is from Penza, Russia, and is a lieutenant colonel in the Russian Air Force.



Cosmonaut Elena Serova, 38, is the only spaceflight rookie on the Soyuz crew launching today. Like Samokutyaev, she is a test cosmonaut, but Serova is not a member of the Russian military.

She was selected as a test engineer cosmonaut for Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) in 2006.

Serova counts Russia's female cosmonaut pioneers Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman in space), Svetlana Savitskaya (the first female spacewalker) and Elena Kodakova among her role models.

"When I was in school my first teacher told us about different achievements in cosmonautics, and I was very much impressed by those first flights, from Svetlana Savitskaya in particular, who was the first woman performing a spacewalk," Serova said in a NASA interview. "She was an amazing individual."

Today, Serova is the first female Russian cosmonaut to launch since Kodakova's final flight in 1997, aboard a NASA space shuttle.

Kodakova spent 169 days in space on Russia's space station Mir between October 1994 and March 1997, then revisited Mir for just over nine days in 1997 during the shuttle mission.

Serova said she is aware that her mission might serve as an inspiration to other Russian girls today, just as those earlier missions inspired her.

Oleg Ivanovsky: Designer of Yury Gagarin's Vostok spaceship died today

A spaceship designer who worked on Yury Gagarin's Vostok spaceship and was the last to shake his hand before liftoff, Oleg Ivanovsky, died on Thursday at 92, the Russian space agency said.

Ivanovsky was a senior designer at the facility codenamed OKB-1 which built the Vostok spaceship that blasted Gagarin into orbit in 1961.

"He participated directly in preparing the flight of the world's first cosmonaut," Roscosmos said in a statement.

"The last to shake the hand of the world's first cosmonaut before blastoff was Oleg Genrikhovich Ivanovsky. After that he closed the hatch of the ship," Roscosmos said, using his patronymic.

Photographs published by Roscosmos show Ivanovsky, a slight man in blue overalls over a shirt and tie, helping Gagarin climb the stairs up to the spaceship and get into his seat.

"I squeezed into the cabin. I hugged him, shook his hand and gave him a slap on the helmet before getting out. A moment later and the hatch swung closed onto its locks," Ivanovsky remembered in a 2007 interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily.

A tense moment followed as the chief designer, Sergei Korolyov warned that there was a glitch: the hatch's locks were not registering as hermetically sealed.

Ivanovsky recalled he swiftly had to remove and replace the hatch, attached by 32 bolts, as Gagarin watched him in a mirror sewn onto his sleeve, while quietly whistling a song with the lyrics: "The motherland hears, the motherland knows..."

It turned out later that the hatch was in fact fine—one of the light bulbs at mission control was simply faulty and flashed an error message by mistake, Ivanovsky said.

The engineers had a secret code they planned to use if Gagarin fell unconscious or started raving.

"Out of seven flights of Vostok ships before Gagarin's, only three were successful. And only two returned to Earth. So it was a big risk, of course," he recalled.

"But we did everything we could to make the flight safe according to the level of knowledge and the capabilities we then had."

Ivanovsky was born in Moscow and fought in World War II, taking part in the Victory Parade on Red Square.

After the war, he studied at Moscow Energy Institute. He began working as a senior engineer in spaceship construction in 1957 and later worked on the Soviet Union's unmanned lunar missions.

"He was an incredible person, a hero who lived his life in the name of science and to benefit the motherland," Roscosmos said in a statement.

Russian and American astronauts: ISS Crew return to Earth

Russian doctors help US NASA astronaut Steven Swanson after he returned with two Russian cosmonauts from the International Space Station, near the Kazakhstan city of Zhezkazgan on September 11, 2014

Credit: ROCOSMOS

Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut returned to Earth on Thursday after spending more than six months working together aboard the International Space Station, as tensions between their countries soared over the Ukraine crisis.

Alex Skvortsov

American Steven Swanson and Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, who left on March 26, landed in the Kazakh steppe at 0223 GMT aboard a Soyuz capsule, the Russian space agency Roscosmos and NASA said in joint statements.

The trio, who worked together in cramped quarters aboard the ISS, smiled broadly, gave thumbs up signs and waved in the sunshine as they spent their first minutes back on the planet.

The three spent a total of "169 days of science and technology research in space, including a record 82 hours of research in a single week" in July, NASA said in a statement.

The crew orbited the Earth more than 2,700 times and travelled more than 71.7 million miles, NASA said.

"One of several key research focus areas during Expedition 40 was human health management for long duration space travel as NASA and Roscosmos prepare for two crew members to spend one year aboard the orbiting laboratory in 2015," it said.

The ISS is now being commanded by Russian Cosmonaut Max Suraev, with crewmates Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency.

Three new crew members, Barry Wilmore of NASA and Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova of Roscosmos, are due to arrive in two weeks, blasting off from Kazakhstan on September 25.

Elena Serova is the first Russian female cosmonaut to serve as an ISS crew member.

Amid the political tensions in Ukraine, NASA announced, in April, that it was cutting space cooperation with Russia over Moscow's Ukraine policies, but that work at the space station would not be affected.

Use of the space station depends very much on Russia, which is the only country with the capability of reliably transporting astronauts and cosmonauts to and from the facility.

The ISS was launched in 1998 as an international effort and has been a symbol of cooperation, particularly between the US (NASA), Russia (ROCOSMOS), Europe (ESA) and Japan (JAXA).

Aerial shot of the Expedition 40 Soyuz TMA-12M landing site.

Credit: ROCOSMOS 

US-Russian ISS Space Crew Returns to Earth Tonight

Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov (center), Soyuz commander; NASA astronaut Steve Swanson (left), Expedition 40 commander; and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, flight engineer, conduct a suit leak check in their Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft ahead of a return home from the International Space Station set for Sept. 10, 2014.

Credit: NASA

A trio of space travelers will return to Earth tonight (Sept. 10) to end a months-long expedition to the International Space Station, and you can watch the landing live online.

American astronaut Steve Swanson and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev are due to land their Russian-built Soyuz space capsule on the Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan at 10:23 p.m. EDT (0243 Sept. 11 GMT), after more than five months in orbit.

You can watch the space crew's landing on Space.com in a live webcast provided by NASA. The webcast will include a series of broadcasts for each stage of the landing.

The landing webcast begins at 3:15 p.m. EDT (1915 GMT) with a farewell ceremony, then resumes at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT) for live views of undocking. The landing coverage will begin at 9:15 p.m. EDT (0115 GMT).

Swanson and his crewmates launched to the International Space Station on March 25, with Swanson commanding the outpost's Expedition 40 mission. Three other station crewmembers — NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, cosmonaut Maxim Suarev and German astronaut Alexander Gerst — arrived at the station in late May.

"We've accomplished a lot. We've had a lot of fun," Swanson said Tuesday (Sept. 9) as he handed control of the space station over to Suarev. "This was a team effort. We got together and did it as a team.

During the Expedition 40 mission, the station astronauts and cosmonauts watched over a flurry of robotic cargo ship arrivals and departures by Russian, European and commercial American spacecraft. Skvortsov and Artemyev performed two spacewalks, and tossed a tiny Peruvian satellite into space on their second excursion.

Swanson made a bit of space history by becoming the first astronaut to post Instagram photos from space. And then there were the science experiments. Many, many experiments.

"We actually set the record for the number of hours of science in a week," Swanson said.

The return of Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev tonight will mark the official start of Expedition 41 on the International Space Station. Suarev will command that mission.

Space Station to welcome 1st Female Russian Crewmember This Month

A Russian cosmonaut is poised to make a bit of history this when she launches to the International Space Station this month, even if she considers the mission a routine spaceflight.

When cosmonaut Elena Serova launches to the station on Sept. 25 with two other crew mates, she will become the International Space Station's first-ever female Russian crew member and only the fourth female cosmonaut to reach space.

She'll also be the first female Russian cosmonaut to fly in the 17 years since cosmonaut Yelena Kondakova's STS-84 space shuttle mission in May 1997 but Serova, 38, said she doesn't see her mission any differently than that of a male cosmonaut.

"I wouldn't say I am doing more ... than what my colleagues are doing," she said in translated remarks during a preflight briefing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston in July.

Elena Serova will be the fourth female cosmonaut to fly in space during Expedition 41/42 in 2014.

Credit: NASA

Serova pointed out that women have gone into space before, and that her focus is on fulfilling her assigned duties as a flight engineer.

"I want to perform my job really well," she said.

In 1963, Russia (then part of the Soviet Union) was the first nation to fly a woman in space, sending Valentina Tereshkova aloft in June of that year on a mission that lasted nearly three days in Earth orbit.

The Expedition 41/42 crew includes, from left, Barry Wilmore (NASA), Alexander Samokutyaev (Roscosmos) and Elena Serova (Roscosmos).

Credit: NASA

Svetlana Savitskaya was the second Soviet female cosmonaut, making two flights into space in 1982 and 1984 and staying aboard the Salyut 7 space station.

She also was the first female to peform a spacewalk.

The United States didn't send its first woman to space until 1983, when Sally Ride blasted off.

Dozens of women from the United States and other nations have flown since, but only one other from Russia: Kondakova.

She made two trips to the Mir space station, in 1994 (on a Soyuz capsule) and 1997 (on a space shuttle).

Serova has said she's been fascinated by space since childhood, and that she always felt visiting the final frontier was possible.

"The door to space was opened to all women by Valentina Tereshkova," she said in a NASA interview.

Space Geckos Die Due to Technical Glitch Two Days Before Landing

The five geckos onboard Russia's Foton-M4 satellite died simultaneously two days before landing because of a technical malfunction, the head of the experiment, Sergei Savelyev, told RIA Novosti Tuesday.

"The autopsy revealed that the deaths were caused by technical issues and are related to the malfunction of one of the biosatellite's systems," said Savelyev, researcher at the Institute of Human Morphology and head of the experiment.

"Autopsies of three of the five [geckos] have been conducted, and the remaining two will be examined today. We can already confidently conclude that the death of all geckos happened almost simultaneously.

"The poor guys died within a few hours. Their bodies were not mummified, as some have reported. Moreover, their organs show that the death occurred no more than two days ago," Savelyev explained.

Savelyev denied reports saying the geckos died from hypothermia, as the lizards were unlikely to have had a lengthy cool-down.

"There was apparently a quick and short synchronous effect on all animals... Some technical glitch in the life-support system," he said, stressing that it was necessary to collect and examine the satellite's data in order to determine the exact problem.

Russian Foton M4 spacecapsule after landing.

Russian Foton-M satellite Bio-Satellite Communications restored

The satellite with geckos, fruit flies, silkworm eggs, mushrooms and seeds of higher plants was launched on July 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. 

Experiments on board Russia's Foton-M bio satellite will continue despite the spacecraft's failure to reach the designated orbit, the head of the spacecraft's manufacturer TsSKB-Progress said Monday.

"We are not going to start the spacecraft's thruster, and will work in the low-earth orbit."

"This won't affect the experiments, we are successfully carrying out 18 out of 24 scheduled [experiments]," TsSKB-Progress Director General Alexander Kirilin said.

Communication with the Foton-M satellite was lost on July 19 and restored on July 26. Since Saturday, scientists have been receiving stable telemetric data from the spacecraft.

A source in Roscosmos, Russia's Federal Space Agency, told RIA Novosti a total of 17 communications sessions have been conducted since July 28. The spacecraft operation is under the control of the Mission Control Center.

The agency earlier specified that the design and onboard control systems of the Foton-M enable self-sufficient operation.

The satellite with geckos, fruit flies, silkworm eggs, mushrooms and seeds of higher plants was launched on July 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The biological mission of the Foton-M satellite includes eight experiments. The experiments involving five geckos are to monitor their reproductive activity in space.

The mission is to study the effect of weightlessness on plants and insects, and to conduct experiments on the growth of semiconductor crystals.

Russian Soyuz Foton-M Satellite fails to respond to commands

Soyuz engineers at Progress were trying to save a research satellite after it failed to respond to commands, which has left it in an improper orbit, Russian news agencies said.

The Foton-M satellite was launched on July 19 on a two-month mission to study the effect of weightlessness on plants and insects.

The satellite carries containers with living organisms, including five geckos, fruit flies and fungi, which are supposed to be jettisoned after two months in orbit and land in Russia.

There is no update on the status of the living cargo, since the containers are not designed to broadcast any telemetry while in space.

The mishap is the latest in series of setbacks that has plagued Russia's once-famed space programme.

Containers with biological experiment equipment being loaded into the Foton-M satellite. 

Photo by the Institute for Biomedical Problems. 

Russian, German and US astronauts dock with ISS

A crew of Russian, German and US astronauts docked with the International Space Station Thursday as space cooperation between Moscow and the West continues despite their worst standoff since the Cold War.

"At 5:44 am Moscow time (01:44 GMT), the manned Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft docked successfully with the ISS," the Russian space agency Roskosmos said in a statement.

Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev, his NASA colleague Reid Wiseman and German Alexander Gerst from the European Space Agency opened the hatch into the ISS just over two hours later, Russian mission control said on its website.

Grinning broadly, they hugged the crew of three already on board the international space laboratory, US astronaut Steve Swanson and Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev.

The Soyuz craft had blasted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on schedule shortly before midnight Moscow time.

The astronauts took a six-hour fast-track route to the ISS after the previous crew to travel to the ISS in March was forced to spend two days in orbit due to a technical glitch.

The new ISS crewmembers are due to carry out a mission lasting 167 days and return to Earth in November.

Surayev, 42, is on his second lengthy ISS mission after his maiden voyage in 2009, when he became the first Russian space blogger. Wiseman and Gerst, who are both 38, are on their first space mission.

Russian RD-180 Rocket Engine Replacement to Cost US $1.5Bln and take 6 Years

The development of a rocket engine to replace the Russian-made RD-180 used to launch the American Atlas V rocket, would cost $1.5 billion and take up to six years, Bloomberg said Wednesday, citing data from an independent panel advising the Pentagon.

The loss of the RD-180 may have a "significant" impact, as there are few "near-terms options to mitigate" the consequences, according to a study by an independent commission of advisors working in the space sector.

Despite claims by the US Air Force that there are enough engines in reserve for two more years of launches, the lack of new RD-180 imports may lead to launch delays, potentially leading to $5 billion in increased costs through 2017.

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel earlier ordered air force commanders to reconsider the principles of US cooperation with Russia in the military and technical sphere and reduce the US dependence on Russian rocket engines.

US Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall said the Pentagon has no means of replacing the Russian-made rocket engine, which the US uses to launch satellites for military purposes.

It was reported that as a solutions to the problem, the US Air Force could produce a US copy of the engine or increase launches of the Delta IV rocket with a completely different engine.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said earlier that in response to the US sanctions against Russia, Moscow will suspend the export of the RD-180 and NK-33 rocket engines to the United States.

Second US Judge Lifts Temporary Injunction on Russian Rocket Engine Purchases

An RD-180 engine and Atlas 5 first stage arrive at the launch pad in Florida.

Credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

U.S. federal judge on Thursday (May 8) lifted an injunction that temporarily barred the U.S. Air Force and United Launch Alliance from buying Russian-made rocket engines for launching launch national security missions that had been issued out of concern that the purchases violated sanctions against Russian leaders.

In issuing the temporary injunction April 30, Judge Susan Braden of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims cited the possibility that money from the transactions could wind up in the hands of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees Russia’s space industry.

Rogozin is one of 11 senior Russian officials sanctioned by the U.S. government following Russia’s incursions into Ukraine.

The engine in question is the RD-180, which is built by NPO Energomash of Russia and sold to ULA by RD-Amross, a joint venture between Energomash and United Technologies Corp.

The engine is used on the first stage of ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket, one of two vehicles operated by the company.

Braden specified that the injunction would stand pending a determination by the U.S. Treasury, Commerce and State departments that RD-180 purchases did not specifically violate the sanctions.

In letters filed with the court May 6, officials with those departments said no decision had been made to specifically label NPO Energomash as a Rogozin-controlled enterprise.

Additionally, "to the best of our knowledge, purchases from and payments to NPO Energomash currently do not directly or indirectly contravene" the sanctions, Bradley Smith, chief counsel for the Treasury Department, said in a letter to the court.

The State Department's letter echoed that sentiment, while Commerce deferred to the other agencies.

Based on those letters, Braden wrote May 8, she was dissolving the temporary injunction.

"If the Government receives any indication, however, that purchases from or payment of money to NPO Energomash by ULS, ULA, or the United States Air Force will directly or indirectly" violate the White House sanctions, the government must inform the court immediately, she wrote.

Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get new Kurs-NA ISS docking system in 2015

Russian spacecraft performing flights to the International Space Station will be equipped with a new automated approach and docking system starting next year, the manufacturer of the system said Monday, RIA Novosti reports.

"All Kurs systems will be replaced with Kurs-NA equipment in 2015," the Izhevskiy Radiozavod company said in a statement.

The unmanned Progress M-21M resupply vehicle currently docked with the station successfully tested the new system last week.

The cargo ship undocked from the ISS in an automatic mode using the new Kurs-NA system on Wednesday and re-docked Friday.

The Kurs-NA system boasts advanced electronics, a fully-digitized control system and increased docking precision compared to its predecessor.

The improved system will be used on all upgraded Progress and manned Soyuz spacecraft in the future.

The Kurs-NA was first tested in space in July 2012, but the Progress cargo ship in that test failed to re-dock with the station due to an apparent failure in the system's sensors.

During a second test in November, the Progress M-21M resupply craft was forced to dock in a manual mode due to another failure of the Kurs-NA system.

Russian Soyuz TMA-12M cargo spacecraft docks with space station

Image from video shows the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft just a few meters away from docking with the International Space Station (ISS) on March 27, 2014 

A Russian cargo ship has successfully docked with the International Space Station Thursday, bringing the crew crucial supplies and water, Russia's space agency said.

The unmanned Progress M-23M ship, which was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, docked with the ISS at 2114 GMT, two minutes later than scheduled, the Roscosmos agency said.

The station was flying over the west coast of Peru at the time, NASA said.

The ship is packed with some 2.4 tonnes of supplies for the station's six-member international crew, including fuel, water, oxygen, and parcels from friends and family.

The ISS is currently under the command of Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut to hold the post.

Also on board are Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev, and Mikhail Tyurin, along with Americans Steve Swanson and Richard Mastracchio.

Earlier this month NASA announced that it was cutting space cooperation with Russia, except over the ISS, due to Moscow's policies in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea last month.

Roscosmos deputy Denis Lyskov said this week that Roscosmos was not planning any retaliatory measures.

NASA has been wholly reliant on Russia for delivering astronauts to the space station since the US retired its space shuttles in 2011.

Russian Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin: Humankind should explore the Solar System and beyond

Alexander Misurkin

Alexander Misurkin. Image courtesy RIA Novosti and Ramil Sitdikov.

Russian astronaut Alexander Misurkin thinks humankind should not stop at the exploration of near-Earth space but rather go further in the universe, the explorer told RIA Novosti Tuesday.

"I think, we shouldn't limit ourselves to exploring the Earth's orbit. I, personally, would be interested in going to the outer space, exploring the asteroids, the Moon, and Mars. It's a natural development for me, we have no right to stop at the orbit of our planet," Misurkin said.

Misurkin was part of the international space station crew coming back to Earth in September 2013.

The astronauts carried out 45 scientific research tasks in the 166 days they spent on board of the station.

Fyodor Yurchikhin

Alexander Misurkin and Fyodor Yurchikhin went into open space working there for 7,5 hours hitting record time for a Russian-made spacesuit.

"Coming back to the orbit is a logical development, because astronaut training is extremely expensive for just one flight," he said expressing his willingness to participate in another space expedition.

Misurkin thinks that US sanctions on Russia can deal a heavy blow to space cooperation.

"I am more than sure that great achievements in space require collaborative work, there is no alternative here. I really hope this doesn't happen and we continue cooperation all the while involving more and more countries in it," the astronaut said.

Russian Soyuz Launch unmanned cargo spacecraft Progress M-22M

A Russian Soyuz-U booster carrying an unmanned cargo spacecraft Progress M-22M is transported to a launch pad at the Russian leased Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome early on February 3, 2012

Russia successfully launched an unmanned cargo ship to the International Space Station on Wednesday evening after a spaceship carrying three astronauts experienced a technical glitch last month.

"At 19:35 Moscow time (15:35 GMT), the cargo ship separated from the third-stage booster rockets on schedule," the Russian space agency said in a statement on its website after the Progress M-23M ship blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The ship carrying 2.5 tonnes of supplies including oxygen, containers of food and water and parcels for the crew is due to dock with the ISS at 01:16 am Thursday (21:16 GMT Wednesday).

The spaceship is following a fast-track route to the international space laboratory that takes just six hours.

Last month, a Soyuz spaceship carrying two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut, was unable to follow the fast-track route to the ISS after a technical glitch in approach.

The astronauts were forced to spend two days en route to the ISS.

Russia insisted that the glitch was minor and would not prevent future missions from using the fast-track route to the ISS.

NASA has been wholly reliant on Russia for delivering astronauts to the space station since the US retired its space shuttles.

Russian-US ISS crew blast off from Kazakhstan - Arrival Delayed

A crew of two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut blasted off Tuesday from Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket for the International Space Station, with US-Russia space cooperation continuing amicably, despite the diplomatic standoff over Ukraine.

Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev along with Steve Swanson of NASA took off in a spectacular night-time launch at the start of a fast-track six-hour journey to the orbiting laboratory, where they will spend half a year.

All the stages of the launch went without a hitch and the Soyuz capsule successfully went into the correct orbit.

Docking with the ISS was expected at 03:04 GMT Wednesday but this has been delayed until 07:58 Thursday.

After the retirement of the US shuttle, NASA is for now wholly reliant on Russia for delivering astronauts to the space station on its tried-and-trusted Soyuz launch and capsule system.

Space officials have made clear that space cooperation, one of the few areas of genuine mutual work between Russia and the United States, will continue unaffected by the mounting diplomatic strains that have seen the US impose sanctions on Russian officials over Moscow's seizure of Crimea.

A yellow toy duck nicknamed "quack" given to Swanson by his daughter hung in the cockpit and started floating a few minutes into launch as the crew started to experience weightlessness.

-'We'll live together peacefully'-

Arrival Delayed
The next trio of crew members destined for the International Space Station is now looking forward to a Thursday arrival at the orbiting laboratory after their Soyuz spacecraft was unable to complete its third thruster burn to fine-tune its approach. 

Flight controllers in the Mission Control Center outside Moscow are now reverting to a backup 34-orbit rendezvous, which would result in an arrival and docking at 7:58 p.m. EDT Thursday, March 27.