Cargo Spacecraft Fails To Dock at International Space Station

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: July 25, 2012 (Issue # 1719)

MOSCOW — An unmanned Russian cargo vessel failed to dock with the International Space Station early Tuesday morning due to technical complications, NASA said in a statement on its website.

The Progress craft had separated from the space station Sunday to perform a series of engineering tests and was due to try out an upgraded docking system that will facilitate future Russian missions to the station.

NASA scientists said two separate docking attempts had failed, the second at 6 a.m. Moscow time, and that the failures appeared to be caused by the new Kurs-NA docking system.

A source in the Russian Mission Control Center told Interfax that its scientists were analyzing the problem, adding that the Progress craft was at a safe distance from the station after performing a passive abort.

Progress will most likely reattempt docking on Saturday or Sunday as a Japanese Harmony cargo ship is expected to arrive Friday, the NASA statement read.

The Federal Space Agency hadn’t officially commented on the docking failures as of late Tuesday morning.

Out of a team of six, there are currently three Russian astronauts living and carrying out tests on the space station: Gennady Padalka, Sergei Revin and Yury Malenchenko.