Russia readies space station port
Published 9:00 pm Friday, September 14, 2001
Associated Press
MOSCOW — Russian officials made final preparations Friday for the launch of a space cargo ship that will carry a docking port to the international space station.
The Soyuz rocket is scheduled to blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan today, and the Progress cargo ship will rendezvous with space station Alpha on Monday, Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.
The docking port will be capable of simultaneously holding three Soyuz or Progress spaceships, and can also be used as a pressure chamber where astronauts prepare for spacewalks.
A check of the rocket on the launch pad revealed a flaw in its control system, which has been fixed. Final tests have shown that all the rocket’s systems are in order, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, quoting cosmodrome officials.
The docking port will be attached to the space station’s Russian-built section, known as Zvezda, or Star. The current three-man crew is expected to use it for three spacewalks in October.
The cargo ship will also carry a small crane to be installed outside the space station, a new spacesuit and other equipment for spacewalks, and French and German scientific gear.
With space station budget overruns topping $4 billion over the next five years, NASA is being forced to scale back on research and commercial uses of the space station to meet President Bush’s budget. The planned cuts would also eliminate a U.S.-funded lifeboat for the space station and living quarters that would accommodate seven people.
The cuts have caused concern among other participants in the project, who fear they would mean fewer seats for their astronauts and less opportunities for research. Russia quickly offered to provide substitutes for the U.S. components.
Russian Aerospace Agency director Yuri Koptev said last month that the proposed Russian components would be half the cost of the U.S.-designed ones, or perhaps less. He said participants in the project will meet in October to discuss the Russian proposals.
In the past, it was Russia that put the entire project more than two years behind because it lacked money to build a crucial crew compartment on time.
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