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Though nobody was reported injured nor was there any reported property damage, a Russian Raduga-1 satellite and it's Proton rocket booster crashed in Kazakstan's central Karaganda region, after a failed launch attempt from Baikonur Cosmosdrome, on Monday. Activists used this recent crash and failed launch, to bring home their loudly proclaimed opposition to further Russian space launches, for environmental reasons including the dumping of fuel during these launches. Even Meirbek Moldabekov, the head of the Kazak Aerospace Agency, said that no more launches would be allowed until the cause of Monday's mishap was ascertained and/or corrected.
The Russians are lobbying for a waiver to launch supplies to the cosmonauts still on board the Mir space station, Viktor Afanasyev and Sergei Avdeyev. The station is to be abandoned soon and left uninhabited, because Moscow no longer has the funding to keep it running and campaigns to raise the extra cash have been unsuccessful. This could ultimately be a blessing in disguise, as the station is getting very old and systems are prone to repeated failures. The cosmonauts on board Mir were to stay there throughout the month of July, and actually perform a space walk associated with readying the station to remain uninhabited until it burns up or ????.
The Russian Space Agency will be asking Kazakstan for a waiver to launch two rockets in the next seven days; one a Russian-Ukrainian Okean-O satellite on Thursday, and another a Progress cargo ship carrying food, fuel and equipment to Mir on July 14. In an effort to make the decision a little bit easier, the Russians have declared that both these cargoes could, and would, be launched on smaller booster rockets than the Proton which failed Monday, and spews out quite a bit more raw fuel than the Okean-O with Zenit-2 booster rocket, and the Progress with a Soyuz booster. If the Mir resupply mission launch is scrubbed, it will cause complications for the crew of Mir, and may cause an early return; they are slated to come back to earth sometime in August.
Russia has been leasing the launch facilities at Baikonur cosmodrome since the breakup of the CCCP, and uses the field for launching satellites, both commercial and military; I assume this includes launching parts destined for the International Space Station, as well?
I sincerely hope that some organization agrees to take over the funding or running of Mir, no matter it's age or condition, as it is another environment in orbit, that could be used in an emergency, or for a private space venture! Mir will be vacated and become celestial fireworks, some time in the year 2000, unless the current situation changes.
- Bongo ( Blast off? )
