Latest Russian robot supply ISS mission in trouble

NASA UPDATE (9:35 a.m. EDT): Russian flight controllers have continued to try and recover command capability with the ISS Progress 59 cargo craft this morning. The most recent ground pass started at 9:20 a.m. EDT and flight controllers reported no change in the issues with receiving telemetry data from the unmanned craft. The Russian flight control team attempted to command the vehicle over four orbits flying over Russian ground sites with no success. The next series of ground station passes is expected to resume late Tuesday evening. Teams are standing down on the Thursday docking attempt while Russian teams continue to analyze data and develop a troubleshooting plan going forward.

Hopefully they can recover whatever telemetry issues they have. One mistake up there, and the whole ISS could become unstable and Nonrecoverable, if the cargo docking was wrong, and hit the ISS with enough force. I don't think that would happen, probably just consider the supply ship a loss, and put into a safe orbit, until something could be done about it.

It seems more like it's well out of control, and is spinning like mad in the video... not to mince words.

www.space.com... 6&short_code=2vwzg

Here's a short clip from the linked video that shows the spin,

How long does a batch of supplies last for Jim?

They always stock up for one supply failure, but don't forget the US commercial Cygnus mission [using a Russian rocket engine] blew up last fall.

Scram the kill mission.

In before someone says, "See, this is why Space-X is better...."

There's a lot of good data, including station consumables status, at
forum.nasaspaceflight.com...

Apparently the pass an hour ago on orbit 13 had no joy, no contact. Source: A. Zak website

Most of the onboard fuel is gone, probably wasted in a stuck-on thruster and other thrusters firing to counter it, right after reaching orbit.

It will probably reenter randomly in several days, probably somewhere in the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere.

Space Command discovers debris cloud near Russian spacecraft:
www.satnews.com...

originally posted by: JimOberg
They always stock up for one supply failure, but don't forget the US commercial Cygnus mission [using a Russian rocket engine] blew up last fall.

In that case let's hope the next supply mission isn't a failure. They have a pretty good track record so two failures in a row should be very unlikely.

What's the significance of the Cygnus mission blowing up? I guess it means there's no Americal re-supply alternative? Couldn't they use a European or Japanese re-supply craft again if necessary?

Progress itself has a great launch record, but it uses an upgraded Soyuz booster called Soyuz 2 as a launch vehicle. Soyuz 2 has failed/partially failed on three previous occasions, all of which were eventually traced to issues with the vehicles' upper stages. The odds of two failures in a row are not great, but the LV itself has failed/partially failed during at least 3, and possibly 4 (if we count Progress 27-M) of its 44 total launches.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
What's the significance of the Cygnus mission blowing up? I guess it means there's no Americal re-supply alternative? Couldn't they use a European or Japanese re-supply craft again if necessary?

The next Dragon resupply by SpaceX is scheduled for June 19; JAXA should be sending up HTV5 sometime in August. Europe is out of the ISS resupply game. Georges Lemaître, the fifth ATV, was launched in July 2014 and re-entered in February 2015; the ESA won't be making any more. There's been speculation on the Nasaspaceflight board about moving up launch dates for Dragon and HTV, as well as possibly shuffling around cargo, but nothing official so far.

In addition, there are further Progress launches scheduled for August and October. I'd expect those launches to be somewhat delayed after what happened with this Progress launch; however, the Russians tend to conduct their equivalent of an accident review board a bit more quickly than the West.

Orbital/ULA are reportedly targeting a 2015 return-to-flight for Cygnus, this time flying on top of an Atlas V, but I don't think they've set a target launch date, and I personally think that another Cygnus resupply this year is unlikely.

Here's NASA's launch schedule for reference.

As time goes by, things are getting murkier, not clearer.

Chief Kremlin overseer of space industry, Dmitriy Rogozin, to Interfax news agency, today:

"So far, no one has any theories as to what happened," he added. "I am meeting with designers today. The situation is so unusual that specialists have so far been unable to determine any causes," Rogozin said

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: JimOberg
They always stock up for one supply failure, but don't forget the US commercial Cygnus mission [using a Russian rocket engine] blew up last fall.

In that case let's hope the next supply mission isn't a failure. They have a pretty good track record so two failures in a row should be very unlikely.

What's the significance of the Cygnus mission blowing up? I guess it means there's no Americal re-supply alternative? Couldn't they use a European or Japanese re-supply craft again if necessary?

I believe Europe is out, because ESA recently retired their ATV resupply craft program.

Oops, someone already told you that. Sorry.

Some Satellites have classified unpublished orbits during their mission life.
They get spotted by amateur astronomers but there usually isn't enough data to further identify them.
Used to be members on here that could look up old military sat launches, its the same everywhere look at the sorry state of NICAP.

www.nicap.org...

It got accidentally shot down by the pro-Russian rebels using BUK.

On a serious not, it might have been some very simple technical oversight, like that infamous Proton crash that happened because someone installed a sensor with + and - the wrong way round. Or it might have been a micrometeorite. Or Aliens.

officials are saying they really haven't come up with ANY theories about what went wrong.

no clue about what could have caused it.

But they still intend to press ahead with launches that share commonality with this one.

in my books that's criminal negligence.

but you know I've always hypered myself into frenzies over this sort of thing!

originally posted by: JimOberg
officials are saying they really haven't come up with ANY theories about what went wrong.

no clue about what could have caused it.

But they still intend to press ahead with launches that share commonality with this one.

in my books that's criminal negligence.

but you know I've always hypered myself into frenzies over this sort of thing!

I can't believe they're going to press ahead without determining what the problem is! That seems ridiculous to me.

Just to share some links, the Nasaspaceflight article about the Progress M-27M failure is well worth reading. In addition, someone from that forum posted a link to a blog which is, apparently, run by a guy who works in Russian mission control; he states that the vehicle's third stage (which is counting the 4 boosters as stage 1 and the central sustainer stage as stage 2) inserted the vehicle into an orbit with an apogee 40 km "above par" and that NORAD has identified a debris cloud between the third stage and the Progress vehicle itself. I am not an aerospace scientist, but, to me, that strongly suggests a third stage problem.

Jim, do you know how much the Soyuz 2 (used in the Progress launch) and the Soyuz U (used to launch Progress M-12M, which failed in August 2011) share in terms of their third stages? That seems to be the common problem between the previous Progress failure and the other, more recent Soyuz 2 failures.