Russia loses contact with satellite

gameboy

Russia's space agency on Wednesday said engineers had lost contact with an Earth-monitoring satellite, in the second satellite mishap Russia has experienced this month.

The Federal Space Agency said workers were unable to locate the Russian-built Monitor-E satellite after it lost orientation Tuesday. The satellite was launched in August.

The agency said blame appeared to lay with the Russian company Khrunichev, which was also responsible for a faulty booster rocket that caused a $146 million European Space Agency satellite to crash into the Arctic Ocean hours after launch on October 8.

The company has been the main revenue earner for Russia's cash-strapped space program, which has depended on income from commercial launches of foreign satellites.

Also Wednesday, a Mission Control spokeswoman said a maneuver to raise the orbit of the international space station had failed after engines on a docked cargo ship cut off unexpectedly.

Vera Medvedkova said a Progress M-54 ship fired its engines beginning at about 2101GMT to raise the orbiting station about 6 miles. But the craft's engines quit after a little more than a minute, she said.

Engineers were looking at the problem and expected to try again to raise the station at a later date, she said.

The higher orbit would make it easier for the next cargo ship, scheduled to be launched in December, to dock at the station.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported Wednesday that officials intended to resume the search next month for an experimental mini-spacecraft that went missing on the Pacific peninsula of Kamchatka.

The Demonstrator spacecraft -- designed to carry cargo and possibly passengers from the international space station -- was launched from a nuclear submarine thousands of miles away in the Barents Sea on October 7.

Engineers lost contact with the craft after it began descending toward the peninsula on schedule.

The ship was built on contract for the European Space Agency and the European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co.

Source: CNN

__________________

Only he who does nothing, does nothing wrong.