Russia restarts spacecraft after embarrassing failures

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LONDON: Russia on Monday managed on a second attempt to restart the engines of a Progress spacecraft attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and shift the station’s orbit.
The success of the manoeuvre is a much-needed scrap of good news for Russia’s beleaguered space programme after a spate of high-profile malfunctions that saw a spacecraft fail to dock with the ISS, astronauts stranded temporarily in space and the loss of a Mexican satellite.
“The engines of the Progress-M26M cargo transport craft were switched on at 0330 (0030 GMT) and worked for 1922 seconds,” space agency Roscosmos said in a statement. “As a result of the completion of the manoeuvre the altitude of the station’s orbit was increased by 2.8 kilometres.”
A first attempt to turn on the Progress engines early Saturday failed. The ISS is now at the right altitude for three of its crew members to return to Earth. Their journey home had already been delayed by the failure of an earlier rocket launch.
Roscosmos has been plunged into crisis by a series of embarrassing failures, drawing fury from politicians and prompting Moscow to launch an inquiry into the space industry after firing its previous head last year.
On Saturday morning, hours after the failed first attempt to right the ISS, Russia also lost a Mexican telecommunications satellite in a failed launch of the Proton-M carrier rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev immediately launched an inquiry after the satellite incident, demanding answers from the head of the space agency, Igor Komarov, and suggesting heads could roll.
“This accident is the consequence of a systematic crisis in the (space) industry,” deputy prime minister in charge of the aerospace sector, Dmitry Rogozin, said in a statement, adding that a new bill on shaking up Roscosmos would be put before Russia’s parliament on Tuesday.