Itar-Tass: Launch Failure Due to Gas Generator
Russia’s Itar-Tass news service is reporting that the cause of the Progress spacecraft launch failure last week has been identified.
The news service quotes Alexei Kuznetsov from Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, as saying “Members of the emergency commission have determined the cause of the failure of the Soyuz carrier rocket’s third stage engine. It is a malfunction in the engine’s gas generator.”
The Progress cargo spacecraft was launched on a Soyuz U rocket last Wednesday, but did not achieve orbit and fell into the Altai region of Siberia. Russia is still searching for the wreckage in difficult terrain and bad weather. NASA and Roscosmos are working on contingency plans for operations of the International Space Station (ISS) in light of the launch failure, which could affect launches not only of cargo, but crews, to the ISS.
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