Russian cargo rocket blasts off for ISS

A Russian cargo rocket carrying food and fuel blasted off for the International Space Station yesterday, a day after the US shuttle Columbia broke up minutes before landing, killing seven astronauts.

"The launch has gone ahead as planned. So far, everything is fine," said a spokesman at ground control just outside Moscow.

Russian experts, speaking at the launch of the Progress rocket at Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe, said the Columbia disaster could prove a serious setback for the ambitious 16-nation ISS programme.

Sergei Gorbunov, a spokesman for Russia's space agency, said work on the $95 billion station would be reduced until launches of US shuttles, used for heavy payloads, could be resumed.

"Cosmonauts will be able to carry out various scientific experiments," Gorbunov was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying. "But we have to forget about further construction work on the station until launches of US shuttles, used to carry large pieces of equipment, resume."

Gorbunov said he thought shuttles would be grounded "for at least a year", making the ISS dependent on Russia's Soyuz passenger craft and Progress cargo ship.

"We understand that now a large part of the burden of ensuring work goes ahead on the ISS will fall to Russia," said Yuri Semyonov, head of RKK Energia, the company responsible for building the Soyuz capsules that carry cosmonauts to the ISS.

Both Energia and Russia's cash-strapped Rosaviakosmos space agency said they needed help to finance extra launches.

The Progress cargo ship is carrying enough food and supplies to keep the ISS's current three-strong crew in orbit for two months beyond their scheduled March departure.

The current team of two American astronauts and one Russian, aboard the ISS since November, was due to be replaced next month by a fresh crew arriving on the US shuttle Atlantis, which is now unlikely to be launched on schedule.

But Gorbunov said the crew would not be stranded, as they could can return aboard their Russian-made Soyuz lifeboat.

"The Progress should supply cosmonauts with everything they need for at least three months," Gorbunov said. "The cosmonauts are safe. At any moment they can evacuate the station aboard the lifeboat, currently a Russian Soyuz docked on the ISS."

To save food and fuel aboard the station, a manned Soyuz mission planned for April could be postponed, he said.

Gorbunov said the team onboard the ISS would not want to leave the ISS unmanned. "Without cosmonauts regularly working there, we could lose control of such a big station," he said.

James Newman, NASA's director of human space programmes in Russia, said work would carry on.

"The Russians have transport capabilities for cargo and crew, so of course we will carry on," he said.

At Baikonur, Russia's top launch site, residents grieved for the Columbia as they watched Progress pierce the sky.

"Nobody had expected a tragedy like this, and we are in mourning and grief," Oleg Urusov, editor-in-chief of Baikonur's main space magazine Kosmodrom, told Reuters.

"Baikonur residents, as people close to the space industry and space exploration, take the Columbia catastrophe as they would the loss of their own loved ones."

Baikonur has seen several disasters. The worst occurred in October 1960 when an R-16 rocket blast killed 91 people.