Russia Wants Extra Safety Check Before Navigation Satellite Launch

Russian Space Agency on Thursday said that it will go ahead with the launch of a navigation satellite on Friday only when the safety checks have been carried out after the crash.

An unmanned Russian spacecraft carrying three tons of food, fuel and water for the International Space Station crashed about five minutes after it was launched, NASA officials said Wednesday.

The GLONASS satellite is a part of a navigation system which is scheduled to be launched on Friday, the satellite is competing with the U.S.-based Global Positioning System (GPS) using a similar Soyuz booster rocket that failed to reach orbit.

The final decision on the launch will be based on the results of the additional safety checks, the RosKosmos space agency said in a statement.

Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying all Soyuz launches would be suspended until the reasons of the accident are found out.

But RosKosmos spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov said: All decisions will be made once the work of the emergency commission (investigating the crash) is complete.

Since the U.S. shuttle program retired last month, Russian Soyuz craft has become the only way for transporting supplies to space for American astronauts.

NASA is paying the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, around $1 billion to fly Americans on these rockets for the next four years.

Six crew members -- Russians Andrei Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyayev and Sergei Volkov, Americans Ronald Garan and Michael Fossum and the Japanese Satoshi Furukawa -- are currently working in the ISS.

The next Progress cargo ship will fly to the ISS after late September or early October, said Gennady Raikunov, head of Russia's Central Scientific Research Institute of Machine Manufacturing.

After the last month’s final shuttle mission this was the first launch to the station. The last mission delivered more than 9,000 pounds of food and equipment to the ISS.

The loss is the first loss of a Progress in the history of Russia's space industry. The spacecraft crashed in the Siberian forest.

“Spacecraft debris landed in three separate areas of the Altai region in southern Siberia, which borders Mongolia,” the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said.