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The first official image of a Russian-European manned spacecraft has been unveiled. It is designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia and will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation. The reusable ship was conceived to carry four people towards the Moon, rivalling the US Ares/Orion system. Unlike previous crewed vehicles, it will use thrusters to make a soft landing when it returns to Earth. I think the main roadmap is the agreement between the European and Russian space agencies. That is their Plan A Anatoly Zak In some respects, the capsule resembles America's next-generation...

The crew of the Soyuz capsule that landed in Kazakhstan hundreds of kilometers off-target after an unexpectedly severe descent was in serious danger, a Russian news agency reported Tuesday. Interfax quoted an unidentified space official as saying that the capsule entered the atmosphere improperly, with the hatch-first, instead of with its heat shields leading the way. As a result, the hatch suffered significant damage. The official said the TMA-11 capsule's antenna burned up during the descent, meaning the crew couldn't communicate properly with Russian Mission Control. Also damaged was part of the valve that equalizes pressure inside and outside the...

MOSCOW — The crew of the Soyuz capsule that landed hundreds of miles off target in Kazakhstan last weekend was in serious danger during the descent, a Russian news agency reported today. Interfax quoted an unidentified space official as saying the capsule entered Earth's atmosphere with the hatch first instead of with its heat shields leading the way. As a result, the hatch suffered significant damage. The official also said the TMA-11 capsule's antenna burned up during Saturday's descent, meaning the crew couldn't communicate properly with Russian Mission Control. The Soyuz crew included U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, South Korea's first...

Soyuz capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut lands off target in bone-jarring descent By MIKE ECKEL , Associated Press April 19, 2008 MOSCOW - A Russian capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut touched down 260 miles off target in northern Kazakhstan on Saturday after hurtling through the atmosphere in a bone-jarring descent from the international space station. It was the second time in a row — and the third since 2003 — that the Soyuz landing went awry. Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said the condition of the crew — South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and...

MOSCOW - A Russian capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut touched down 260 miles off target in northern Kazakhstan on Saturday after hurtling through the atmosphere in a bone-jarring descent from the international space station. It was the second time in a row — and the third since 2003 — that the Soyuz landing went awry. Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said the condition of the crew — South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko — was satisfactory, though the three had been subjected to severe gravitational forces during the re-entry. The...

the Russian Soyuz capsule that ferried them back from the international space station made a very steep re-entry, known as a "ballistic re-entry," and landed 260 miles off course on Saturday morning. Mission Control in Moscow reported all three were in satisfactory condition although the ride home subjected their bodies to severe G-forces, up to 10 times the normal force of gravity. Besides being far off course, the landing was about 20 minutes later than planned.

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MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A Russian-built rocket carrying the world's first female space tourist lifted off Monday in Kazakhstan on a flight to the international space station. Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, was accompanied by a U.S.-Russian crew on the Soyuz TMA-9 capsule.

A young Iranian-born American woman who rallied her wealthy family to underwrite a $10m (£5.3m) competition for the first private spaceflight will soon get to experience for herself the thrill of being a space tourist. On Tuesday, Anousheh Ansari was confirmed as the replacement for Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto as a fare-paying passenger onboard the next Russian rocket mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Lift-off for the Soyuz capsule that will carry Mrs Ansari and two members of the next ISS crew is scheduled for 14 September from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. In her quest to fly in space,...

There will be a Soyuz launch today and it can be viewed on the web... You can view the launch by clicking here...

Iranian set to become first Muslim woman in orbit 25/03/2006 An Iranian entrepreneur Anoushe is set to become the first Muslim woman to travel in space. Ansari, founder and president of the US-based Telecom Technologies Company will be part of the crew of the Russian Soyuz space mission scheduled for 2007. "Exploring space has been my dream since childhood which I am about to realise," says Ansari 38, adding that to be "the first Middle Eastern woman to travel in space is a great honour." In 2005 Telecom Technologies sponsored the award of a 10 million dollar prize to the...

NASA will pay the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) $21.8 million per passenger for Soyuz rides to and from the International Space Station (ISS) starting this spring. NASA spokeswoman Melissa Mathews said Jan. 5 that the U.S. space agency and its Russian counterpart concluded a $43.8 million deal just before New Year's Day that includes Soyuz transportation to and from the space station for NASA's newly named Expedition 13 crew member, Jeff Williams, and a ride home for astronaut Bill McArthur, who has been living onboard the station since October. Under the deal, Russia also will provide what Mathews described...

WASHINGTON, November 23 (RIA Novosti) - U.S. President George Bush has signed a bill passed by the U.S. Congress ending restrictions on NASA's use of Russian Soyuz spacecraft for flights to the International Space Station, the White House said Wednesday. The document allows the United States to pay Russian organizations for work conducted on or services provided for the ISS. The bill, which amends the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000, allows NASA to cooperate with Russia on the ISS, including the possibility of using Soyuz craft to ferry American astronauts to the station. The act linked NASA-Russia cooperation on...

Russia's space industry is set for a hefty hike in funding. In 2006, its budget will balloon to $690 million and Russia will share fifth or sixth place with India in the global financial league table (after the U.S., the EU, Japan and China). According to Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Federal Space Agency, the new trend will continue into the future. In 2004, Russia launched two spacecraft more than in 2003, for a total of 23 launches, or 42.6% of the worldwide number. The U.S. accounted for 29.6%, China, 14.8%, the EU, 5.6% and India, 1.9%. Even if...

A bill that would allow the US to continue flying astronauts on Russian Soyuz rockets to the International Space Station was passed by the US House of Representatives on Wednesday. The bill will let the US keep paying Russia for launches until 2012, the year that a US replacement for the shuttle is scheduled to be ready. Then, Congress will review the legislation.

There has been a successful blast off for the latest mission with a difference to the International Space station. The world's third space tourist is among the crew of three that has lifted off from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan. US businessman and scientist Greg Olsen has reportedly paid about 16.6 million euros for the place on board the Soyuz spacecraft. The crew is due to hook up with the international space station by Monday. Russian commander Valery Takarev and US astronaut William McArthur will replace two other astronauts who have been in orbit since April. They will...

ZHUKOVSKY (Moscow region), August 18 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Space Agency Roscosmos will sell a Soyuz spacecraft, a carrier rocket and launch services to NASA for some $65 million, if the American agency approves the deal, a Roscosmos official told journalists Thursday. Roscosmos manned flight programs head Alexei Krasnov said the deal, which includes a Russian cosmonaut as shuttle commander, might be changed to take inflation into account. He explained that Russia's commitments on American astronauts' delivery to the International Space Station would expire in spring 2006, meaning that in April 2006, two seats in the Soyuz would be...

Waiting in the Wings: Expedition 12, Space Tourist Olsen Prepare By Tariq Malik Staff Writer posted: 11 August 2005 06:44 am ET HOUSTON—As the crew of NASA’s space shuttle Discovery celebrates their safe return to Earth, two astronauts are gearing up for their own launch toward the International Space Station (ISS). NASA astronaut Bill McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev are set to ride a Soyuz spacecraft to the station in October on the twelfth expedition to the ISS. McArthur will command ISS Expedition 12, with Tokarev serving as flight engineer. Physicist Gregory Olsen, a paying spaceflight participant whose trip...

<p>The spaceship, launched at 0318 GMT Monday from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, is expected to reach the station in two days.</p> <p>A Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut are scheduled spend the next six months on the orbital outpost.</p> <p>Commander Gennady Padalka, 45, and flight engineer Edward "Mike" Fincke, 37, will replace two colleagues who have lived aboard the complex since October.</p>

With many unanswered questions about how NASA’s new space exploration agenda will impact the International Space Station (ISS) program, an international gathering of space agency chiefs slated for March has been postponed until at least June. Space officials said more time is needed to sort through a number of interrelated issues, including how many Soyuz capsules will be needed to carry crews to and from the station and who will pay for the Russian-built vehicles. NASA’s space station partners learned only in January that as a result of a new White House space exploration agenda the U.S. space agency is...

<p>The commander of the astronauts who came home this week said Thursday there will be a Russian investigation into why the jets of their Soyuz spacecraft fired before it undocked from the International Space Station.</p> <p>"When we were working, the thrusters were activated," former station and Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko said, "and as for the reason, the crew had not issued any commands, and it's not really clear to us what happened."</p>

Monday, October 20, 2003 MOSCOW (AP) - A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian, American and Spanish crew docked with the International Space Station on Monday, two days after blasting off from the Russian manned space facility in Kazakhstan. Astronauts Michael Foale of the United States and Russian Alexander Kaleri are the eighth crew to have flown to the space station for long-term occupation since the inaugural crew arrived on Nov. 2, 2000. There also have been four short-term missions using Soyuz craft. Applause broke out at Mission Control outside Moscow after the docking Monday morning. Pedro Duque of Spain, a...

KOROLEV, Moscow reg, October 20 (Itar-Tass) - The Soyuz and Progress spacecraft construction financial situation is catastrophic, the Energia rocket and space corporation' s head Yuri Semyonov told a press conference in the Mission Control Centre after the successful docking of the Soyuz TMA-3 with the International Space Station. The corporation has received no finances promised for the second half of this year, but it has taken big loans to be repaid from the funds. The corporation administration did not focus attention on the issue before the blast-off and the docking, but has to inform its partners now that there...

France in Space France In Space is a weekly synthesis of French space activities based on French press. It is provided by the CNES office in Washington D.C.. Contact: france-in-space@ambafrance-us.org - 4: ASTRONAUTS IN KOUROU IN 2007, IT IS POSSIBLE Jean-Pierre Haigneré, former European astronaut committee chairman, is currently in charge of this project as part of the ESA launcher directorate. His assignment is to ensure that the configuration selected for the new Soyuz launch pad and facilities enable the development of manned missions. According to Jean-Pierre Haigneré, Europe has cherished the dream of manned flights for a long time....

US firm Space Adventures is potentially interested in buying a Russian Soyuz space craft to make tourist flights to the International Space Station (ISS), ITAR-TASS quoted the company's chief as saying. The Arlington, Virgina-based firm, which brokered the first two tourist space flights in 2001 and 2002, has signed a contract with the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos to fly two more tourists to the ISS in 2004-2005. Eric Anderson, chief executive officer, told the news agency in Los Angeles that Space Adventures was keen to send the two space tourists on board one spaceship accompanied by a professional astronaut. They...

Source: Space News, June 16, 2003, page 3 NASA would consider paying the Russian space agency for Progress and Soyuz space-transport vehicles should all other options for supporting the international space station without the space shuttle fail, the U.S. agency's top foreign relations official told Congress June 11. John Schumacher, NASA associate administrator for external relations, sought to reassure members of the House Science space and aeronautics subcommittee that Russia and the other partners in the 16-nation space station program are stepping up and helping out as NASA tries to recover from the Feb. 1 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Schumacher...

MOSCOW - An unmanned European spacecraft — poised for launch Monday on a Russian rocket — will orbit Mars for nearly two years and search for signs of life on the planet. AP Photo The Mars Express spacecraft is to be launched by the Soyuz FG booster rocket from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:45 p.m. Monday (1:45 p.m. EDT), according to the Russian Space Forces, which runs the launchpad. The European Space Agency vehicle, which cost $350 million, will initially be put into the Earth's orbit. About 90 minutes later, it will be given a final push...

<p>Little more than three months ago, seven astronauts paid with their lives to remind space officials that spaceflight is unforgiving. Tolerance of any level of malfunction is a recipe for eventual disaster.</p> <p>Now it appears that this lesson still hasn't soaked into the consciousness of some top officials. A serious flaw in a computer that guides the landing of Russia's spaceships — only the latest in a series of such flaws over the years — has been cavalierly dismissed as unimportant because it didn't result in any deaths.</p>

Computer error to blame for rapid fall of Soyuz By Marcia Dunn in Star City, Russia 07 May 2003 A computer error is suspected of plunging the three spacemen who returned to Earth on Sunday into a descent that was so steep their tongues rolled back in their mouths and they could hardly breathe. Their Soyuz spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan, 270 miles from its intended destination. The two US astronauts and one cosmonaut were returning after five months on board the International Space Station. The landing was the first since the Columbia space shuttle disaster in February. One of the...

Astronaut Donald Pettit is carried by stretcher to a helicopter Sunday after he and his two shipmates landed hundreds of miles off course, near the village of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. A mysterious software fault in the new guidance computer of the Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft was the cause of the high-anxiety off-course landing over the weekend, NASA sources tell MSNBC.com . ONCE IDENTIFIED, the error should be easy to fix in the computer of the Soyuz TMA-2, which is now attached to the International Space Station to provide the new two-man crew with a way to return to Earth. But until...

Two US astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut returned safely to earth from the International Space Station on Sunday despite landing several hundred kilometres (miles) off their target in Kazakhstan after an apparent malfunction in their Russian Soyuz craft. Nikolai Budarin and US crewmates Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit, who had blasted off from the International Space Station (ISS) on the Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft earlier on Sunday, were to have been met after landing at around 0200 GMT. But the capsule landed 440 kilometres (275 miles) off course and rescue teams took more than two hours to locate it, according to...

FOR an agonising two hours yesterday, two American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut returning from the International Space Station went missing, somewhere in Kazakhstan. Visions of a second disaster, hard on the heels of the space shuttle Columbia in February, were dispelled only when an increasingly frantic search found the men safe and well, but almost 300 miles off course. “We have radio contact with the crew. Thank God, they are alive and well,” an official at mission control said. It had been a long and anxious wait after contact with the Soyuz spacecraft was lost during re-entry. Mission control...

NASA Mission Control has stated that the NASA Public Affairs Officer who was aboard one of four rescue choppers has reported in. The Soyuz capsule carrying the Expedition Six crew has landed potentially 30 kilometers off target. The rescue choppers are searching for the crew.

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 April 28 Rollout of a Soyuz TMA-2 Aboard an R7 Rocket Credit: Scott Andrews, NASA Explanation: It takes a big rocket to go into space. Last weekend, this huge Russian rocket was launched toward Earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS), carrying two astronauts who will make up the new Expedition 7 crew. Seen here during rollout at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the rocket's white top is actually a Soyuz...

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - U.S. astronaut Edward Lu plans to don a badge from the Columbia mission when he blasts off Saturday in a Russian rocket, the first manned launch since the disaster. Lu said the mission to the international space station is not only filling the gap left by suspended shuttle flights - it's paying tribute to Columbia's seven astronauts. The shuttle disintegrated over Texas in February. "We are doing what I think they would have wanted and what their families would have wanted us to do - continue the process of flying into space," Lu said Friday. Russian and...

SOYUZ New Burden for a Poor Russian Space Program By MICHAEL WINES MOSCOW, Feb. 3 — The disintegration of the shuttle Columbia throws the mantle of space exploration for the immediate future onto a venerable Russian program that is experienced in manned flight but, by most accounts, hard-pressed to shoulder such a heavy burden. Russia's space program is sophisticated, reliable and poverty-stricken. The national space budget is $266 million, less than 2 percent of NASA's $14.7 billion and barely half of what India spends. The cash crunch is so severe that the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, the shepherd of...

<p>MOSCOW (Reuters) --A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a research satellite exploded seconds after blast-off, killing one person in a setback that could hit the international space station program, officials said on Wednesday.</p> <p>The 300-ton unmanned Soyuz-U rocket exploded 29 seconds after take-off from Russia's Arctic Plesetsk cosmodrome late on Tuesday, its blazing debris showering onto the launchpad, an Emergencies Ministry spokesman said.</p>

PLESETSK (Archangelsk Region). Oct 16 (Interfax) - A Russian soldier was killed during a derailed launch of the Soyuz-U booster rocket carrying Foton-M satellite. Draftee Ivan Marchenko, born in 1981, died on Tuesday. Eight more people were injured and six of them were hospitalized. The launch pad was partially destroyed, the Northwestern Center of the Emergency Situations Ministry told Interfax on Wednesday. Soyuz-U exploded on the 29th second of the mission. The Ground Control Center did not comment on the condition of the satellite. A state commission headed by Space Forces Commander Anatoly Perminov is investigating the accident.

HOUSTON, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Rock star Lance Bass apparently has landed a seat aboard the upcoming flight of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, the president of a television production firm working with Bass said Thursday. "He's part of the crew," David Krieff, president of Los Angeles-based Destiny Productions, said in an interview with United Press International. NASA said it has not yet received official word that Bass, a 23-year-old singer with the boy band N'Sync, will fly with two Russian cosmonauts on a Soyuz flight slated for launch Oct. 28. However, NASA mission managers...