A science blog with Eric Berger

Russians lose supply spacecraft, could cause issues for NASA


An unmanned Russian supply vehicle that launched this morning to deliver supplies to the International Space Station has been lost.

A Progress vehicle docks at the ISS. (NASA)

There has been no confirmation of a crash. The Progress vehicle was due to dock with the station early Friday with its nearly three tons of supplies.

The loss of the 44P mission, a Russian Progress vehicle, will cause a kink in plans to keep the space station supplied with food, water and other essentials with the retirement of the space shuttle.

The vehicle’s loss will also cause significant concern to NASA as the Progress and Soyuz vehicles use a common launch system.

The Soyuz capsules are presently the only means by which NASA has the capability to get astronauts to and from the space station.

I’ll have more on the story here as it develops.

UPDATE: It’s interesting to note that the launch comes about one month after the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, issued the following triumphant statement: “From today, the era of the Soyuz has started in manned space flight, the era of reliability.”

Among the items lost aboard the Progress spacecraft was a silicon dioxide chip experiment from the lab of Rice University chemist Jim Tour.

NASA has now confirmed the loss.

2ND UPDATE: According to Interfax, the wreckage of the Progress resupply spacecraft came down in the Republic of Altai, causing no destruction. Altai shares a border with China. There were no reports of injuries on the ground.

Eric Berger

65 Responses

  1. JohnD says:

    It appears that the craft failed to reach orbit. It is worth noting that, while the manned Soyuz can make a soft landing in such a situation, the unmanned Progress cannot; it is designed to burn up on re-entry.

  2. U.N. Owen says:

    Bring back the shuttles until there is another US alternative.

    • Armed Texan says:

      That ship has sailed. It would take years to certify new suppliers for spare shuttle parts, and the Community-Organizer-In-Chief killed the shuttle’s replacement.

    • Justin Kugler says:

      Former Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale has repeatedly pointed out that enough of the supply line for Shuttle was shut down even before Obama was elected that closing “the gap” would not be possible. Orion was not a one-for-one replacement for the Shuttle, either, nor was it ever intended to primarily serve as a resupply vehicle for Station. That is the job of the commercial cargo vehicles. The first of these, SpaceX’s Dragon, is planned to berth with the ISS in December.

    • Yeahbuddy says:

      Can’t bring back the Shuttles… they’re already promised to blue states. They need the votes.

  3. PostShooter says:

    Thank God it was just Russian groceries and clean underwear.

    This time.

    • HockeyHound says:

      Unfortunately… it was full of US groceries, laptops, batteries, hygiene equipment, and water. The one thing they really needed was the fuel this carried to reboost the station.

    • PostShooter says:

      I’m thinking you may have missed my point. I would rather it be your laundry list of “US groceries, laptops, batteries, hygiene equipment, and water” than an astronaut or cosmonaut. Since the two systems, passenger and supply, use the same launch platform.

    • HockeyHound says:

      Ah, yes. Thought you were saying it was just Russian gear we lost. But yes, third stage between the two are identical, so we are going to feel a bite on the next Soyuz.

  4. Ben H. says:

    While this is tragic. We in the US should go forward from this event being supportive of our partners in spaceflight, and help them work through the problem. Don’t devolve into criticizing ROSCOSMOS and saying we should stop working with them and that we must build back US spaceflight faster BECAUSE of this. This is another example of how spaceflight is hard and unpredicable. The calm and rational response is to do a serious investigation and either continue flying Soyuz launch vehicles or halt flying until the problem is fixed, based on what the investigation shows. Despite all that though, I can already hear the pundits turning this into a political issue for US space policy. The ISS program has contingency plans in place to deal with this kind of thing (IE, there are enough supplies on board for the astronauts if we can’t launch another Russian vehicle for a few extra months).

    - Ben H.
    JSC, Houston, TX

    • Armed Texan says:

      Yeah, no sense in having a backup when conducting “hard and unpredictable” tasks! Keep sending space dollars to the Russians! Everything will be fine.

    • TomTom1978 says:

      True the program was approved by the Bush administration, but i still put the blame on Griffin. He insisted on redesigning the wheel and didn’t listen to other options put forth by other Nasa engineers.

      If we kept with the previous replacement, another orbitor we would still be stuck circling the earth for atleast the next 30 years.

      Its time to do something different. I thought Bush had a great vision. Just the wrong guy to put it in place.

    • TomTom1978 says:

      Sorry my reply was for the post below between John and I.

    • Ben H. says:

      @Armed Texan
      You completely missed my point. If you actually read and comprehended the context of what I said, I implied that I like you want US space vehicles flying sooner rather than later. My point was that we don’t need reactionary punditry like YOUR comment. The whole point of the ISS is a joint venture with our Russian colleagues, yet people like you like to imply that there is something inherently wrong with putting our hardware and people on Russian vehicles, paid for with US tax dollars. That was the agreement we signed up for with ISS long before it was planned to phase the shuttle out.

      My point was that the sane rational response from an American space enthusiast should be: “That sucks, I hope that they figure out the problem soon and fix it. The US program should help in whatever way they can to speed that process so that OUR part of the program is not impacted.” And your opinion on whether the next US vehicle is the commercial suppliers SpaceX/ORbital or something Congress mandated like SLS should be irrelevant from that.

      But sadly, everything that happens is a political talking point for most people.
      - Ben H.

  5. Armed Texan says:

    Good thing we retired the shuttle and then King Barry axed it’s replacement! No sense relying on 30 year old American technology when we can buy 50 year old Russian technology!

    • JohnD says:

      Er, Bush43 retired the Shuttle and axed its replacement. If he had not done the latter, we would be flying it now.

      Had Bush43′s “Apollo on steroids” continued, it would still be a minimum of five years before the first manned flight and the ISS would have been de-orbited.

    • TomTom1978 says:

      John, Bush never said Apollo on steroids. What Bush did was give Nasa a direction and that direction was to go back to the moon, establish a base and use it as a stepping stone to go to mars. Griffin was the one that came up with the Apollo steroids crap. Last time i checked presidents don’t design spacecraft. And the previous replacement before the Columbia accident wasn’t it just another orbitor? You’re not tired of circling the earth? If the blame is on anyone its Griffin for insisting a flawed design.

    • JohnD says:

      TomTom1978, Bush personally approved the Constellatoin plan, even if he never used the nickname himself. (As for not designing spacecraft, would that we could say the same about Congress.)

      And shouldn’t the replacement for an orbiter be something that is designed for LEO? Cislunar space is a different engineering problem from LEO, and needs different tools to conquer it (witness von Braun’s original moon plan, which called for longer stays on the Moon and development of a spacecraft that shuttled between the Earth and the Moon).

    • HockeyHound says:

      JohnD, when did Bush axe the replacement? He was forced to push the funding and delay it’s release, but BarryO was the one who put axe to wood on that project. And as far as your other comment, Constellation was a dual purpose, ISS Human Transfer AND Moon vehicle.

    • TomTom1978 says:

      Yeah i read that article about van Braun’s plan before.

    • JohnD says:

      Hockeyhound, Bush43 killed it in 2001. Constellation wasn’t a true replacement for the Shuttle; it was designed for going back to the Moon.

      And it is worth remembering that Constellation would have been both more expensive and less safe than the STS.

    • TomTom1978 says:

      Orion or now CEV is technically an orbitor. Just not a heavy lift vehicle. It is designed to orbit and dock with the ISS even when the plan called for ISS to be decomissioned, but also designed for space travel. So yes it is a shuttle replacement. Again if we would have continued with venturestar we would have continued LEO. In other words going no where.

    • JohnD says:

      TomTom1978, if we had continued with the VentureStar project, then NASA would have had more money to spend on exploration and going beyond LEO. Remember that VentureStar was to be a commercial space program, with NASA buying rides to LEO (just as they do now, but at much lower prices). And VentureStar would have hauled a 10 kilotonne payload to LEO, which is close to STS capabilities (12 kt). That means that the VentureStar could have hauled up the pieces to build our Moon exploration craft for far less than Constellation was projected to cost ($200 billion over 20 years). And that means that NASA could have spent more on missions and less on hardware.

      There is no doubt that Griffin played a significant part in all of this. His pursuit of sausage-slicing degrees instead of good NASA policy meant that most of the programs started under his watch ended up far over-budget and behind schedule. As a result, NASA has both lost out on many opportunities to do good science because they were too busy paying for bad engineering/management and has gotten a reputation for being a money hog.

  6. Madcougar says:

    Perhaps this is why the Losties received that load of supplies during the second season of Lost.

  7. pete says:


  8. firewalker says:

    How come the word SABOTAGE COMES TO MIND

  9. wantingbalance says:

    It crashed into the “stealth” Chinese space platform.

  10. TomTom1978 says:

    Has the Russian military been sent out to secure the crash site in case any of the vodka onboard is recoverable? You know the cosmonaunts on the ISS are depressed about this.

  11. prlary says:

    Hate when that happens…

  12. LiveSimply says:

    This is really sad news. The effects of this lost supplu spacecraft could be catastropic for the space station, but I hope and pray that it isn’t!

    • Justin Kugler says:

      No, it will not be catastrophic. The ISS has enough food to last a year and sufficient reserves of oxygen and water.

  13. robert says:


    • MikeHenley says:

      OBAMA did NOT do it. Dubya did! Bush43 retired the Shuttle and cancelled its replacement. There are enough things to blame the current Prez for, but let’s keep it to the facts.

  14. DonDDragon says:

    I think most of us understand that space flight is inherently dangerous, and that accidents happen. I still think, however, that our government – no particular political party to blame, has absolutely “screwed the pooch” by scrapping the shuttles, and their replacement which was well on the way, before a functional, tested, and known reliable replacement was in place. Some will say that we cannot afford space exploration. I say we must afford it. There are any number of wars, programs, and agencies that could be dissolved to pay for education and space exploration as well as any number of important programs. Yes, it is an imperative that we work with the Russians and other countries in space. Space exploration should be a collective human activity not relegated to one country. But we also should not be in the position of relying on the Russians alone to supply the ISS, and the private space programs are not ready to step in yet.

  15. TransAmer99 says:

    Wouldn’t be surprized to learn the mission was jettisoned to justify an increase in the rate Russia charges to fly U.S. personnel and supplies to the ISS. Their economy is even more strapped than ours.

    Hindsight will prove that mothballing the shuttles before a tested replacement was in operation was a foolish, costly and boneheaded mistake.

    • JohnD says:

      Well, it worked the last two times we did it, why not now? There was a two year gap between the last Mercury manned flight and the first manned Gemini, and a six year gap between the last Apollo manned flight and the first Shuttle flight.

      For the most part, NASA’s problems are created by politics and politically-minded managers. Every administration from Nixon on has cancelled the plans of the previous one and given NASA a new mission. Nixon killed Apollo (with Johnson’s help) in order to pay for the Space Shuttle. Carter slowed down production and Reagan killed it entirely in order to fund his space station. Bush41 killed the space station in order to go to Mars. Clinton killed the Mars program to pay for the ISS and started work on the replacement for the Shuttle. Bush43 killed the shuttle and its replacement to pay for his return to the Moon program. Obama killed Constellation in order to focus on LEO.

      NASA has always been given programs that will take twenty years to bring to fruition, told ot do them in eight years, and provided with enough money to fund the project for one year at a time.

      If we built our transportation system the way we’ve built NASA, we’d have on-ramps in six cities, 100 miles of beautifully paved road with a gas station in the middle of the desert, and a retired fleet of beat-up U-haul trucks that we used to ferry things around in. The gas station would get its supplies by barges, which would be sunk after each use; every four months, people would move into the gas station and send the previous folks back on the barge. The concrete for the road would be made using limestone from Florida, gravel from California, and sand from Texas; it would be mixed in Mississippi and then carried by mule team to the newest construction site before being abandoned at the side of the road (which hasn’t been built yet). In our (collective) front yard would be a collection of half-built cars, including one that could go faster than the speed of sound, one that could carry a home, and one that could comfortably house seven people for a month on the road (which hasn’t been built yet).

    • StanleyS says:

      Yes JohnD, it is amazing that we are the same society that once successfully conceived and built the Interstate Highway System. That accomplishment required that a Democrat President be willing to continue forward with a project started by a Republican President. And guess what, it actually happened!

  16. gaetano marano says:

    after the Shuttle retirement, there’s a big risk that, the $200 billion ISS, could DIE soon
    and the toy-makers, can’t yet help NASA, since they still play only with test, mockups, YouTube animations and Photoshop images of their “spacecrafts”
    it was a very bad idea to retire so soon the Shuttle, 5+ years before have a, true, working, safe and reliable, replacement

    • Ben H. says:

      How is SpaceX’s successful launch and recovery of a full-scale and partially operational space vehicle just photoshop and youtube? It is true we should be skeptical of new players who have not yet fully proven themselves but the people at SpaceX are real dedicated engineers who know what they are doing.

      But I don’t expect much rational thought in internet comments, especially on this blog on any NASA post.

      - Ben H.

    • Martin M says:

      Lets see two “successful” launches. The first stage is supposed to be recoverable so they can reuse the nine first stage engines so they can reduce costs. They have 18 engines at the bottom of the ocean. I wouldn’t call that successful I would call it a work in progress but a lot of work left to do.

      Martin M (former rocket engineer)

  17. Ken says:

    “…causing no destruction.” If there was no destruction, can’t they use it again?

  18. Brian says:

    Chock that up to 2 Russian rocket failures in as many weeks…. I wouldnt be real confortable on that station at the moment. Should the next supply rocket fail they will be S.O.L.

  19. Bill in Houston says:

    Cheap Russian crap. What next?

  20. shockwave says:

    Had any politician listened to NASA, we’d have had replacement vehicles years ago. Heck, Lockheed even went in halfsies on the X33/Venturestar before congress killed it (admittedly because an idiot was in charge of it – you fire the idiot and get your vehicle flying however.) But nobody sees any advantage to the space program anymore. You just drive your cars (engine computer-nasa invention) to the best buy where you buy a new cell phone (cell networks-derived from TDRSS) and a card for your computer (integrated circuits-TI invention Nasa paid for to put in the AGC) so you can play the latest video games and laugh at how technologically superior the US is… or was.

    Today’s tools are tomorrow’s toys. If the nation won’t invest in tech development and improvement, then tomorrow you will have no more new toys. But hey, you can always watch the Chinese hypersonic airplanes on a YouTube video.

    • gaetano marano says:

      it was the X-33/Venturestar SSTO that was a completely idiotic design and it’s really incredible that NASA has burned over $1.5 billion (maybe, $5+ billions, at today’s costs) on a vehicle NOT ABLE TO REACH the Earth orbit

    • JohnD says:

      The X-33 was supposed to be a technology demonstrator, not a full-scale flight model. Complaining that it would never reach orbit is like objecting to the use of MR1A when testing the Mercury capsule.

  21. gaetano marano says:

    but… if the (1800+ launches) very reliable Soyuz rocket has had a failure, what will be the (real) reliability (and successful launch record) of rockets like the Falcon-9 and the Taurus II on which NASA will rely from 2014 to resupply the ISS astronauts?

    • JohnD says:

      Time will tell. You can’t build a new rocket with a record of 1800 launch successes, by definition.

      However, the Falcon has amassed a fairly good safety record thus far. As long as they maintain the current quality level, they should catch up to the Russians in a decade or so.

  22. L says:

    JohnD, your comments about is hilarious! And unfortunately, a little too true.

  23. [...] via Russians lose supply spacecraft, could cause issues for NASA | SciGuy | a blog. [...]

  24. particles says:

    The simple truth is that the United States space program is being destroyed by the false promises of the private guys who simply cannot wait to get their companies hooked onto the NASA wagon. They too, want to feed at the trough and employ paid bloggers and forum members to wax poetic about just how good their way is.. well, if the private companies are so good why do they need to contract with NASA? The simple truth is that we have been sold lies, and NASA needs to be returned to full funding with clear goals, and well managed congressional oversite.

    • Justin Kugler says:

      COTS, CRS, and CCDev have been funded at a fraction of traditional NASA programs, yet it will be a Dragon capsule docking with the ISS in December. Orion won’t fly for a few years, at least. Do you have any evidence for your claims or are you just tossing up FUD?

      The whole point behind the commercial services programs is to lower NASA’s operating costs so the agency can stop spending so much money trying to get to orbit that there’s nothing left to do anything once we get there. That’s what killed Constellation, not NASA’s commercial partners.

  25. particles says:

    Justin, we won’t save a dime either way actually. Real and projected savings are two very different things. I’m afraid the truth will be ugly for both our technical base and for our prowess as a space fairing nation. It would be vastly cheaper to fully fund our SLS programme, and quit moving the goalposts and withholding money from NASA. The sad truth is space is expensive, and privatizing space will not reduce the cost or in fact lower the risks. In fact, in the real world it might increase the costs. As an example look at airlines continual battle to stay solvent financially. What are the ramifications if SpaceX goes under in 10 years or is purchased by Boeing, or merges with another company. There is a place, and I’d argue the central function of NASA to remain commited to providing space access under its own development as an agency of the United States. By your reckoning, it might be cheaper to have private companies provide the function of national security as well.. after all *that* would save money….. right?

    • Justin Kugler says:

      The airlines provide services to the military so they can focus their tactical and strategic airlift where it is needed. Why should NASA necessarily be any different? Nowhere in the Space Act is NASA required to build its own boosters, so your opinion on the agency’s “central function” is just that.

      Given that Booz-Allen-Hamilton has indicated that NASA’s $38 billion estimate for the Space Launch System is on the optimistic side, I have absolutely no idea how you come to the conclusion that it would be “vastly cheaper” to rely on traditional cost-plus contracting for SLS than to use existing boosters like those available from SpaceX or United Launch Alliance or to compete heavy lift out in a fair competition.

      In an era of flat budgets, NASA has to carefully choose its priorities. I think we should prioritize missions and exploration systems, not giant boosters without a clear purpose. You’re making a false dichotomy between private and public space. I think we need the strengths of both sectors.

  26. Martin M says:

    Bush set the timeframe for the Shuttle Retirement. OBAMA killed the replacement. At least get the facts straight. Candidate OBAMA lied, as is normal for him, and stated in a speech in Titusville Florida that he would close the gap between the follow on and the Space Shuttle, instead he created the cliff which in effect has killed Americas Manned Space Program. It could be as little as 18 months to get a single shuttle, Atlantis, ready for flight with a usable External Tank. It would have to become a priority though in order to make that timeline.

    Martin M (former Rocket Engineer)

    • JohnD says:


      Under the Constellation plan as it stood at 2008, the minimum gap between the last shuttle flight and the first manned Orion mission was 5 years. Under COTS, the first flight will take place in less than 3 years. Three is less than five, so the gap has closed (i.e., become narrower).


      You are blaming Obama for Bush43′s policies. Remember that Bush43 cut NASA funding, killed the Shuttle, killed its replacement vehicle, killed research into advanced propulsion, and tried to kill the ISS. Under Bush43′s “vision” all we would have is a big rocket that was more expensive to run and less safe than the Shuttle – and that could do far less. Obama increased NASA’s funding his first two years, and saved the ISS.


      Except that there aren’t any usable ETs left and it would take longer and cost more to restart the line than it will take to get the COTS vehicles man-rated.

  27. William Harrison says:

    So, supreme confidence in the abilities of Russia’s Space Program influenced us to end our Shuttle program? Perhaps it’s time to regenerate our fleet, rather than trust Putin’s once and future USSR.

  28. Keith says:

    What was the last Shuttle mission for? I thought it was for supplies to last awhile and not even a month later more supplies are going up. This is a classic screw up by the US Government not keeping the Shuttles in operation until it was clear that the Russians were capable of handling the task. Obviously, they are not up to the task.

  29. Captain Cook says:

    I told you so! This is another failed decision of owebama and will be extremely harmful to the USA. Want to create jobs, get the Shuttle, or something better, working right away. Americans can do this! United We Stand!

  30. YouMustBeLogged says:

    Lets just hope that Russia continues to install backseats in their spaceships for the American space program.