Soyuz Fails Safety Tests – Flight Delayed
Russia to postpone next manned space launch, AFP
“Krasnov said that delays came after the re-entry capsule of the Soyuz TMA-04M space ship to be used in the mission was shown in testing not to be hermetically sealed and could not be used for safety reasons. That means the next mission will have to replace it with the re-entry capsule intended for the following mission scheduled May 30, which in turn will be delayed.”
Russia makes the case for accelerating (or at least fully funding) commercial crew. 2011 was one of the worst on record for the Russian space program, and 2012 is continuing in that vein.
Couldn’t agree more. Time to pony up before the Russian program collapses under the weight of their poor quality control.
Sad….
I’d so hate to be on the engineering team right now responsible for getting them through that safety test.
Safety my arse. Roscosmos wants to abandon the ISS – Period.