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Russian Progress 59 Experiences Problem (Update)

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
April 29, 2015
Filed under ,
Russian Progress 59 Experiences Problem (Update)

Russian Progress Cargo Space Station Resupply Spacecraft Launches but has Problem
“In the early morning hours today a Russian Progress unmanned cargo spacecraft launched from Kazakhstan with supplies for the International Space Station (ISS). The launch appeared to be picture perfect until it reached orbit. At that time there was a communication issue. Controllers in Russia were unable to confirm ‘deployment of navigational antennas or the repressurization of the manifolds in the propulsion system’ according to NASA commentator Rob Navias.”
Keith’s note: We’ve added a video to this story which clearly shows the abnormal spinning that Progress is experiencing.
Keith’s update: NASA UPDATE (4/29 9:50 a.m. EDT): Docking has been called off for the Progress 59 spacecraft. Russian flight controllers are continuing to assess the vehicle and what the plan going forward will be. Additional information will be provided as it becomes available.

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

106 responses to “Russian Progress 59 Experiences Problem (Update)”

  1. Yale S says:
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    “Russian Progress M-27M suffering in space – wild rotational spin observed”
    Could be very, very bad.

    https://www.youtube.com/wat

    As Marc put it in the SpaceRef article:
    “No rendezvous with the ISS is currently planned until the issue is resolved.”
    Good idea!

    Reminds me of the 1966 Gemini 8 spin, but without astronauts to take control.

    https://www.youtube.com/wat

  2. DTARS says:
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    Sure a shame congress delayed commercial crew for years and years by not funding it when requested. Doesn’t this failure put Soyuz missions in question until the reason for failure is resolved?

    Does this make SpaceX more likely to win the next commercial cargo contract?
    Stay with the horse that knows the trail.

    Next cargo mission June 19th

    • Yale S says:
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      Whether this occured or not, it is inconceivable that SpaceX would not get a contract.
      I don’t ithink its so much “Stay with the horse that knows the trail.”
      It is stay with the only horse on the trail.
      They are the only ones with a fully functional system (and with a perfect record), and are also the lowest cost US vendor.
      Orbital does not have a launcher, Sierra is vaporware, CST has never flown, Lockheed is vaporware (very, very interesting vaporware, nevertheless).

    • PsiSquared says:
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      Obviously a failure of this sort would put future missions in question for any launch provider, including SpaceX. There is no doubt the Russians will put a hold on Progress missions until the find the root of the problem and correct it, just like any other launch provider would do. Heck, I imagine that even the vaunted Elon Musk would do the exact same thing.

      Hmmm. I wonder why that is?

    • Yale S says:
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      A deeper issue for Russia (and the ISS and the US) is the implication for crew shuttles. There is A LOT under and over the hood that is shared between the freight and crewed machines.

    • objose says:
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      Just a question for all of you: DO you not think that commercial crew was delayed perhaps as a diplomatic gesture after the cold war? Russia, goes quiet on division of its empire, puts away nukes, and in order to subsidize the failing economy, the US sends billions for “space services?”
      Seems like a fair trade for the only effective technology they could share. Someone else has brought this up before?

      • Yale S says:
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        There most definitely was a declared intent to keep Russian capabilities from being sold to bad actors in the world.
        I think that not also doing commercial space was more a perceptual issue, with business-as-usual the only reality.

  3. DTARS says:
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    Life in space suddenly very dependent on fire breathing Dragons being able to fly with a little help from their falcon friends.

  4. Yale S says:
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    The falcon 1’s were renowned for the quality of their spectacular “non-scheduled spontaneous energetic disassemblies”

    • hikingmike says:
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      That only happened once, right?

      • Yale S says:
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        There were 3 failures – some high up. Flight 2 and 3 had the first stage bump the second stage. Flight 2 almost made it.
        Flights 4 and 5 were successful.
        All the F9s reached orbit.

  5. DTARS says:
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    Far from being over confident. I stated a fact. Pressure is on for June 19th, or perhaps we have no humans in space for a while.

    • DTARS says:
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      Seems its up to The Little Company That Could. All the other companies/spacecraft are to old, to tired or got to fat eating to much pork.

      • Zed_WEASEL says:
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        Just one minor nit. The folks from Hawthorne got more manpower than ULA, They are no little company.

        • Yale S says:
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          And not an easy one to work at either!

          https://static-secure.guim….

        • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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          Sure they do but look what they’re doing compared to ULA. No comparison.
          Cheers.

        • John Thomas says:
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          I thought ULA had more people working there than SpaceX, that’s why ULA costs are more.

          • Yale S says:
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            SpaceXs labor costs in CA are very high, plus the tax environment is poor. I see ULA as living in the soon to expire cost-plus universe. Manufacturing the identical machines for more than 13 years and with the labor costs in Decatur, GA it is easy to see why SpaceX’s Shotwell said: “I don’t understand how ULA is so expensive,”
            With luck ULA may recreate themselves and be a true competitor.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            That comment by Ms. Shotwell as remained in my mind as well, Yale. I keep thinking that someone will figure it out. After all they are a public company; as far as I know they don’t report huge profit margins, so the answer has yet to surface.

          • DTARS says:
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            Where does ULA hide all that JUICE!!!! Lol

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            But as a public company, the shareholders are more interested in profits than innovation. When ULA had their cash cows of Atlas V and Delta IV with all those cushy government contracts, why innovate? What’s in it for shareholders when ULA was essentially a monopoly launch provider for the government?

          • John Thomas says:
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            As I mentioned, the reason ULA is more expensive is they have more people working on it.

          • Yale S says:
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            I think SpaceX may have more employees. They are at least within a few hundred of each other.
            “The United Launch Alliance team consists of approximately 3,400 employees working at sites across the country. Job category functions include program management, engineering, test, manufacturing, launch site operations, mission and business support.”

            From Wikipedia:
            SpaceX
            Number of employees
            3,500+ (Apr 2015)

            A more relevant issue is that ULA has union employees (a very good thing! IMNVHO).

          • John Campbell says:
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            SpaceX is privately held so the “shareholders” are, for the most part, rolling profits back into R&D… because they can.

            ULA is, through the two companies making it up, publicly held… and are busy pushing the profits back out to the share-holders in the form of dividends instead of working to evolve a sustainable system.

            Don’t forget that publicly held companies, through Sarbanes-Oxley, are required to NOT look more than three months ahead at any time.

            Only privately held firms are able to get away with looking further ahead… and, unlike publicly held firms, they don’t exactly have the wads of cash unless the owners are pouring money into them. Once such firms are turning a profit, the owners are able to decide whether to take any as a dividend or to roll it back into the company to make it better.

            Should SpaceX or Blue Origin, for instance, go for an IPO, most of the monies for R&D will get passed out to the share-holders and the company will be stuck with the systems they had when they sell out.

            Institutional investors, after all, don’t care about the mission of a company, they care about dividends.

          • Yale S says:
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            Musk has specifically stated that SpaceX will not go public until they have a production Martian Transport system hauling colonists. A public company would prevent long-term high-risk enterprises.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            I’m guessing not all directly working for ULA. ULA sources a lot of parts and services from other companies. SpaceX is “vertically integrated” and therefore does as much as possible “in house”.

          • Yale S says:
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            Interesting to know how many work building the RD-180s

      • PsiSquared says:
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        Typical over confidence and loose grip on the realities of space flight. You’re quick to give short shrift to everyone that isn’t SpaceX, and by everyone I mean NASA, NASA employees, employees at other space flight companies, other space flight companies, and virtually anyone that isn’t Elon Musk.

        • Yale S says:
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          Musk doesn’t seem to be very admirable in his married life

          • PsiSquared says:
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            If he’s not a drug dealer, terrorist, murder, kidnapper, rapist, or whatever, I don’t care what he does in his personal life. As for whether or not he’s admirable in his marriage, that’s up to him and the families involved, i.e. the people who know all the details. I’ve yet to meet anyone who was fit to judge someone else on their personal life.

          • Yale S says:
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            I was simply pointing out that my fandom is based upon his technical achievements and goals. I don’t think of him as “elon”. I don’t worship the ground he walks upon, just his work.

          • PsiSquared says:
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            Well there are certainly people that do worship the man as if he’s a demigod or summat.

          • DTARS says:
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            And then there are people that are glad that somebody is finely doing something.

        • DTARS says:
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          Imagine if there was no Elon Musk/SpaceX

          • PsiSquared says:
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            Why should i? Playing imaginary games doesn’t change anything. More importantly, doing so would in no way address my point.

          • Yale S says:
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            Maybe do it because it is fun. There is a whole genre of literature based on alternate histories. Beyond the enjoyment of the novel situation, it also illuminates facets of the “real” real world.

            The great creators are the people who live in the future. Their actions today are just tactics to get them to the future. Imagination, fantasy, speculation are the greatest of intellectual tools. All else follows from where the mind goes forward and away from the known path.

            If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
            Henry David Thoreau

          • Yale S says:
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            I wonder if Blue Origin would the alternate “SpaceX”.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            Blue Origin is approaching the problem differently. They have one suborbital stage flying so far, but they also have a suborbital capsule flying at the same time. But, suborbital is a long way from orbital in terms of delta-V. I’m rooting for Blue Origin, but they’re definitely the underdogs at this point in time.

          • Yale S says:
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            Yes, they are on a slower track, but they would seem to be the only real private alternative to DTARS hypothetical. Maybe Stratolaunch? Altho they have constraints on maximum payload.

        • DTARS says:
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          In my little train picture I thought about saying little train that Would instead because unlike SpaceX, the other companies chose not to reduce the cost of spaceflight. Reduction of the cost of spaceflight, cost of launch etc., in my view, is what matters most. Once that is accomplished natural economic forces will take us where we need to go in space.

          I am against anything that delays that from happening.

          As to your remark of giving short thrift to everyone but SpaceX that is untrue.

          I do realize that we are victims of the system, struggling to create a better future.

    • John Thomas says:
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      Pressure is on for the abort test May 5.

      • Yale S says:
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        Musk never lets go the pressure:
        ——————————
        Elon MuskVerified account‏@elonmusk
        Rocket launch good, satellite in geo transfer orbit. Still so damn intense. Looking fwd to it feeling normal one day.
        4:45 PM – 27 Apr 2015
        ————————————

        Between Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity, and his ex-marriages, I don’t see how he can sleep.

        • Odyssey2020 says:
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          Elon has billions of ways to sleep at night.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          Highly motivated and successful people like Musk are quite often a bit nuts. If they were “normal” they would not be that driven. I’ve read some articles by an ex-wife of Musk, and he doesn’t sound like the kind of “family man” that can hold a marriage together. How can you when you’re running three different companies all pushing the bleeding edge of innovation at the same time?

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      Japan is sending up HTV-5 in early August as well, so the burden isn’t entirely on SpaceX.

  6. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    Well, if they want to save face ( and they do ) , The Russians could call this a Previously Unpublicized Artifical Gravity experiment, perhaps ?

  7. Yale S says:
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    SpaceX has had some near-death experiences with the F9 and Dragon.
    The first Dragon to ISS got confused as it was in final approach to ISS. It turns out that the sensors were confused by unexpected reflections from the Japan module. SpaceX instantly modified the software on the Dragon and the mission suceeded. NASA expressed their admiration for their ability to respond outside the box.
    Another one was when the Dragon’s thrusters would not fire right after separation and the solar arrays wouldn’t deploy. It took about an hour or more to work around the issues.

    SpaceX has had its mettle tested and so far been able to recover.

    • Panice says:
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      Thank you and a bonus thanks for spelling “mettle” correctly.

      • Yale S says:
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        As the Tin Man said…

        When a man’s an empty kettle he should be on his mettle,And yet I’m torn apart.
        Just because I’m presumin’ that I could be kind-a-human,
        If I only had heart.

        http://images4.fanpop.com/i

      • Yale S says:
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        A rhyme I just composed:

        Please do not meddle,
        As I receive a shiny medal,
        Composed of gilded metal,
        Awarded for my awesome display of mettle!
        The End.

    • speragine says:
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      Are you kidding? ,,,”SpaceX has had its METTLE TESTED and so far been able to recover. ” Apollo 1 , and Apollo 13- were having one’s mettle tested. SpaceX has, till this point in its relative infancy (operational, not developmental ), only been dealing with minor software issues and

      system tweaks. Wait for some kind of major system failure or a significant obstacle impeding their success to be overcome, then pour your adulation on them. But then of course they will have had NASA to help them along. NASA on the other hand had only themselves.

      • Yale S says:
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        You seem to have a quite limited myopic view of the company.
        I think if you review the history of the company you will find that going thru the creation of the falcon 1 and one disasterous failure after another was a trial by fire (on their own dime) over and over. From its start in 2002 until its first successful launch in 2008 there was one obstacle, one failure, one adversity, one total disaster after another. Musk came very close to running out of cash and the will to continue when success was finally and painfully won with the 4th flight. After that demonstrated success, they were able to win the ISS cargo contract competition along with Orbital sciences and the rest is history.
        https://www.youtube.com/wat
        Read his words following the 3rd complete frustrating and expensive failure of the falcon1:
        message to Employees, August 2, 2008
        Plan Going Forward

        It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit on this flight [Falcon 1, Flight 3]. …the most important message I’d like to send right now is that SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward. We have flight four of Falcon 1 almost ready for flight and flight five right behind that. I have also given the go ahead to begin fabrication of flight six. Falcon 9 development will also continue unabated, taking into account the lessons learned with Falcon 1…. There should be absolutely zero question that SpaceX will prevail in reaching orbit and demonstrating reliable space transport. For my part, I will never give up and I mean never.

        Thanks for your hard work and now on to flight four.
        –Elon–

        https://www.youtube.com/wat
        Even after the 4th flight which finally succeeded Musk said:
        “I remember waking up the Sunday before Christmas in 2008 and thinking to myself, ‘man, I never thought I was someone who could ever be capable of a nervous breakdown. I felt this is the closest I’ve ever come. Because it seemed pretty, pretty dark.”
        “We were running on fumes at that point, We had virtually no money… a fourth failure would have been absolutely game over. Done.”

  8. Yale S says:
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    Did I say anything untrue or misleading?

    • PsiSquared says:
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      I believe Cessna Driver is saying that SpaceX hasn’t had its mettle tested because it’s yet to lose a mission with Falcon 9 or more importantly a US Govt/ISS mission, and Cessna Driver is right to point that out. Falcon 1 losses don’t even come close to comparing to the loss of a cargo mission, especially given the publicity focused on SpaceX now.

      • Yale S says:
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        So he is saying is not how they manage crisis, but instead catastrophes like Orbital Sciences dealing with the Antares explosion. It is certainly true that SpaceX has not had to deal with that. And they may never. No Atlas V or Delta IV has fallen out of the sky.
        I imagine SpaceX, being privately held could survive (as a company) the horrible failure of a Crew Dragon, but could they continue that particular service? Maybe not. I imagine that it would depend on the cause. Cutting corners, bad design, poor QA… That would be hard to recover from. In a single vendor goverment contractor business-as-usual legacy model they would actually get MORE money to correct the problems and get back on schedule.

        • PsiSquared says:
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          Perhaps he’s addressing how they manage crises. Managing the aftermath of losing a vehicle is bound to be much more complex than managing a transient sensor issue.

          • Yale S says:
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            Very true. And running as an independent city-state by an irritable despot, I imagine that waves of beatings and banishments would occur and steps taken to get back on the rails. A failure in the inflight-abort test in the fall would be the perfect showcase for their response (not that it should happen!)
            The closest example I can think of is VG. I think Richard Branson got a bad ice-water shock earlier, and seems to have worked thru it.

      • Yale S says:
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        He should read my reply to speragine:

        https://disqus.com/home/dis

        SpaceX has gone thru trials that would have flattened many an enterprise. Their current success is built on the disasters of their early years.

  9. mfwright says:
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    These seem to contradict each other from a collection of recent articles:

    Russia Cuts Its Space Program Spending By A Third,
    http://www.reuters.com/arti
    and http://sputniknews.com/russ

    Russia will conduct “a manned mission around the Moon in 2025,” with plans to land people on the moon in 2029,
    http://sputniknews.com/russ

    Russia will have twice the number of communications satellites and three times the number of scientific satellites,
    http://sputniknews.com/russ

    Russia will not develop super-heavy launch vehicle in near future,
    http://sputniknews.com/russ

    It’s been said Sputnik News is owned by Russian government which makes it weirder.

  10. DTARS says:
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    The future has already been denied because companies were not aloud the opportunity to try and go out of business.

    This is the future that has been denied us for fear of embracing commercial years ago.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch

    All delayed for the lack of an affordable reusable rocket.

  11. JJMach says:
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    Does anyone know if the tumbling Progress module is in an orbit that could bring it dangerously close to the Space Station?

    Whether you want to cheer or jeer at SpaceX, all that becomes moot if we have a multi-ton piece of space junk on a collision course for the ISS.

    (Unless SpaceX goes and takes down the Progress with a Dragon…then let the cheers and jeers recommence.)

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      Even in the fast track profile, after orbital insertion a number of burns are required to bring Progress to ISS. Those burns won’t be possible unless they get Progress under control. In that case Progress will eventually deorbit.

  12. Yale S says:
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    I do not agree that the price of blood “must” be paid or that failures are “inevitable”. That implies a supernatural force wreaking destruction. There is a POSSIBILITY, but not inevitability.
    For example, I would not be surprised if a Falcon or an Atlas blew up, but I would be equally non-surprised if they NEVER failed. I discussed VG in another part of the thread in the afternoon.

  13. Yale S says:
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    LOV or LOC is NOT inevitable. There is no reason that Boeing or SpaceX could not fly crews forever without a single death. Some horrible systems like the space shuttle had extremely high probability of failure, but not inevitable.

  14. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    A post-launch failure of this nature isn’t unprecedented. The out-of-control spin is interesting and indicates that this is a broader issue than just the downlink to Earth.

    Would I be right or wrong to say that a Progress would sit in its parking orbit awaiting ground instructions to commence rendezvous. So, without com, it’s just going to sit there until its orbit decays.

    • Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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      – for whatever reason, this Progress is now completely out of propellant. It has all the flying capability of an anvil from here on down.

  15. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    FWIW, Russian sources are now saying that US Space Command at Vandenberg AFB are reporting having detected a cloud of about 40 small objects in a cloud around Progress-59 and the Soyuz third stage. It isn’t clear which vehicle the debris is from (or even if it is from either vehicle although the chances of inserting the spacecraft precisely into the same orbit of a pre-existing debris cloud is vanishingly small).

    However, given the Progress’s negative pitch tumble and the pressurisation failure in its propulsion system, my money at the moment is that either the propellent tanks or major propellent lines ruptured during the pressurisation process. This may or may not have been associated with a re-contact with the Soyuz U/S which may have still been under partial thrust due to it burning long.

    Overall, the guys at Roscosmos and the factories that build both Soyuz-2-1A launch vehicle and the Progress spacecraft will be working 24/7 to try to come up with a concrete scenario to explain what now inevitably seems to be an LOV/LOM and how to mitigate it in future.

    Barring a miracle, both vehicles will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere between 5/7 and 5/10 this year.

  16. Michael Spencer says:
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    The Russians are very capable and the Progress is a dependable, prodigious machine. And I point this out simply to underscore the nature of spaceflight as intensely dangerous and prone to failure.

    • Yale S says:
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      As the investment disclaimer states: past performance is no guarantee of future results.
      Russia is operating much like a failed narco-state. Corruption and cronyism is S.O.P.
      There is no transparency. There is no reason to believe that the parts and production going into the soyuz meets any kind of reliable, verifiable standards.
      Would you buy a Russian airliner? Even eat Russian canned goods? http://tass.ru/en/opinions/

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      The Russians are capable, but seem to accept more risk when making changes. Considering the changes made to the Soyuz launch vehicle, the root cause might be with the launcher, which would not bode well for our current crew taxi to ISS.

      • Yale S says:
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        It does appear to be some issue during separation.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          That seems to be the consensus of the media. So, my guess is no more Progress or Soyuz (capsule) flights until this is fully resolved.

  17. Yale S says:
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    I find it interesting and surprising that the press is ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room. The Progress is 1st cousin to the crew soyuz.they share many (most?) critical systems. I cannot see them flying crew until this is understood, corrected and tested.

    https://spaziandoit.files.w

    • Yale S says:
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      The Russians are saying that there should not be a delay in the May Crew Soyuz to ISS because it is an earlier model launch vehicle.
      Considering that we don’t know the actual failure, I am interested in what NASA says about the upcoming flight with Americans on board.

  18. richard_schumacher says:
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    This is a reminder that nothing can be truly reliable if it isn’t re-useable.

    • PsiSquared says:
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      When the day comes that reusable launch vehicles are in use, it will be true that even reusable launch vehicles can’t be 100% reliable.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        True reusable launch vehicles will not be 100% reliable either. But, they don’t suffer “infant mortality” problems nearly as often, because you can test fly them (without an expensive payload on board) and get them back intact for subsequent re-flight. Also, getting them back intact means you can inspect them for “anomalies” after each flight. You can’t do that when your stage is at the bottom of the ocean or burned up on reentry.

  19. Yale S says:
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    100% safety is not required. There is no inevitability. There has not been a single US passenger flying a US air carrier in the US killed in 11 years – and that was in a small beechcraft shuttle. A child on the ground was killed 9 years ago when his car was swiped by an airliner.
    US airliners do have accidents, but planes, like cars can be upgraded to minimize deadliness.
    There may or may not ever be a passenger fatality going forward, but it is in no way inevitable.
    Or ironically stated:

    https://40.media.tumblr.com

  20. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    Various news media are reporting as of Wednesday 4/29 midday US that the Progress 27M mission is a total loss. Or should we call it Regress 27.

    Now begins the deathwatch.

    We prepare for a fiery reentry show….somewhere. Anywhere on Earth from the north latitude of Edmonton Alberta roughly to the tip of South America. Regress could reenter where roughly 90 percent of Earth’s residents need to keep their eyes on the sky for the next two weeks or so. Best estimate for deorbit so far is sometime between May 7 and May 12…

    • Rich_Palermo says:
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      “Or should we call it Regress 27.”

      How about Con-gress?

      • EtOH says:
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        Progress 27 may be tumbling uncontrollably towards fiery destruction, but its not that broken.

    • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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      There is still a greater than 7/10 chance of it will be over ocean when it re-enters. Not exactly an ‘all clear’ but certainly a ‘don’t panic’.

      • Yale S says:
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        I think during the reentry time one should hide under a tavern bar and imbibe heavily. That won’t protect you, but so what?

  21. John Adley says:
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    Looks like some celebration is going on here. Who says Americans don’t miss the cold war? LOL If some of you just want to point out how unreliable Russian systems are, you may also want to mention that space shuttle still holds the world record of killing people.

    • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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      Only because it also holds the world record for the largest crew capacity for any crewed spacecraft.

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      Yes, there were two fatal shuttle flights.

      But, there were also two fatal Soyuz flights. The first failure was the first flight (Soyuz 1), with only one cosmonaut, and the second failure (Soyuz 11) carried the full compliment of three cosmonauts. So yes, Soyuz killed fewer people because it carried fewer people when missions ended in loss of crew.

    • Chris Clardy says:
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      Do all the FSB trolling you want, not only do we not miss the cold war, we celebrate the way Cosmonauts, Nasa and ESA and Jaxa Astronauts work together, it is the way forward.

  22. Yale S says:
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    You seem to have a strange view of what is commercial. SpaceX does not need government money. Its very, very nice to have government contracts (even if very burdensome), but they are not existential. SpaceX can get along with commercial business very well, thank you. They have bookings for more than 30 launches.
    In 2013 Ford Motor Company had $100million in fed contracts. Are they a “hybrid”?
    A “commercial” launcher is one that provides launch services for a fee to private or government clients, with the company making technical and financial decisions. That is different than the “contractor” model.

  23. Chris Clardy says:
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    I think Steve Fossett Would be a good example, there are not many of us that could have accomplished what he did in a lifetime.

  24. Yale S says:
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    Dont understand the question

  25. Yale S says:
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    I will repeat my point. I have never and will never say that spaceflight is free from the POSSIBILITY of disaster.
    Au contraire mon frere.

    What I said was directly, specifically, and limited to, your saying that it is “inevitable” and there “must” be death and disaster. That implies not probabilities, but some type of wrathful vengeful god hurling bolts of death at arrogant mere humans trying to raise themselves to heaven.
    There is not the slightest reason that an Atlas V MUST ever fail. It may, but not must.

  26. Yale S says:
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    Not at all. Over exactly the time-frame of the ISS contract, Bigelow is flying its 100% private space stations. Round trips (which are available from both SpaceX and Boeing) will dwarf the puny number of crewed flights to ISS.
    http://bigelowaerospace.com

    SpaceX is RIGHT NOW developing the pieces to fly to Mars before the end of the next decade.
    The thing you wish is exactly what is being created. You are disparaging the only real hope.