'Hello, space station? NASA here. Can you put us through to Moscow?'

**American Patriot** · April 3rd, 2014, 14:55

'Hello, is that the space station? NASA here. Can you put us through to Moscow?'

Not-so-comprehensive severance of space chumship

By Brid-Aine Parnell, 3 Apr 20149

NASA has cut all ties with Russia's space programme over the crisis in Ukraine, apart from maintaining the International Space Station.The US space agency had repeatedly said that it wouldn't be taking any action over the situation between Ukraine and Russia, but it reversed its decision, saying in a statement overnight that it would be suspending most of its engagements with Russia. The only exception is the "safe and continuous operation" of the space station, for which it will remain in contact with Roscosmos.

NASA employees will no longer be able to travel to Russia or invite their Russian counterparts to the US and will be forbidden from emailing or conferencing with them as well because of Russia's actions in Ukraine, according to a memo sent to staff.
The leak of the memo yesterday prompted a statement from NASA that criticised Congress for making the agency so reliant on its Russian partners. Since the last of the space shuttles retired from service after Atlantis' last flight in July 2011, NASA has depended on Russia's Soyuz capsules to ferry 'nauts to and from the ISS.
The growing capabilities of Elon Musk's SpaceX firm, already working for NASA on cargo drops at the station, could give the agency a way onto the ISS in the future, but it also wants its own spaceships.
"NASA is laser focused on a plan to return human spaceflight launches to American soil, and end our reliance on Russia to get into space," the agency said in its statement.
"This has been a top priority of the Obama Administration’s for the past five years, and had our plan been fully funded, we would have returned American human spaceflight launches – and the jobs they support – back to the United States next year.
"With the reduced level of funding approved by Congress, we’re now looking at launching from US soil in 2017. The choice here is between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians. It’s that simple. The Obama Administration chooses to invest in America – and we are hopeful that Congress will do the same."
Just last week, the agency had said that it didn't expect Russia's annexation of Crimea to impact its cooperation with the country. But since then, other US agencies have been told to stop contact with Russia and NATO has suspended all civil and military cooperation with the country in protest.

**vector7** · April 29th, 2015, 15:43

Unmanned Russian Spacecraft Plunging to Earth: Official

World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: April 29, 2015 18:14 IST

The ship had been scheduled to dock with the ISS, where the international crew of six people is awaiting the cargo, on April 30.

Moscow: An unmanned Russian cargo spacecraft ferrying supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) is plunging back to Earth and apparently out of control, an official said on Wednesday.

"It has started descending. It has nowhere else to go," an official familiar with the situation told AFP on condition of anonymity, speaking ahead of an official Russian space agency statement expected later in the day.

"It is clear that absolutely uncontrollable reactions have begun."

The official said the descent likely marked the end of the Progress spacecraft's mission although the Russian authorities will contact it again to make sure everything has been done to rescue it.

"We have scheduled two more communication sessions to soothe our conscience," said the official, adding it was hard to predict when exactly the vessel would fall back to Earth.

A Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress M-27M spacecraft with supplies for the ISS successfully launched on Tuesday but communication with the vessel was lost soon afterwards.

A spokesman for the Russian space agency, Mikhail Fadeyev, declined immediate comment.

The loss of the Progress supply ship would be the latest embarrassment for Russia's space programme that has been recently hit by a series of mishaps.

Russian officials said earlier Wednesday that attempts to contact the spacecraft had been unsuccessful, raising fears it could be lost for good.

"There have been no improvements," a mission control spokesman told AFP.

The controllers had on Tuesday opted to change the flight plan and extend the vessel's journey to two days instead of six hours in a bid to fix the glitch.

The mission control spokesman said a decision on the spacecraft's fate would likely be announced later in the day.

"It's the first time that we have such a combination of emergency situations."

'We're all worrying'

The ship had been scheduled to dock with the ISS, where the international crew of six people is awaiting the cargo, on April 30.

The Russian space programme is renowned for having sent the first man into space in 1961 and launching the first sputnik satellite four years earlier, and remains a major source of national pride.

But more recently it has endured a series of setbacks, notably losing expensive satellites and a similar Progress supply ship in 2011.

Shortly after launch, the vessel crashed into Siberia, marking one of Russia's biggest space setbacks.

Deputy prime minister in charge of the aerospace industry, Dmitry Rogozin, who is currently in China, said he was in constant touch with the space agency.

"We're all worrying about our cargo spacecraft," he said on Twitter.

NASA said none of the equipment on board was critical for the US section of the ISS, and that the astronauts have plenty of provisions, enough to last for months.

The Progress was carrying "1,940 pounds (880 kilos) of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water, and 3,128 pounds of spare parts, supplies and scientific experiment hardware," NASA said.

The next delivery to the ISS is planned by SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship on June 19.