Space station crew safe despite mechanical problem

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) October 26, 2006 -- MOSCOW The international space station's three-man crew faces no danger, despite a mechanical problem that prevented a Russian cargo ship from being fully moored Thursday, Mission Control said.

The ship was attached securely to the station, but the crew could not unload it because of the problem, a Mission Control spokesman, Valery Lyndin, said.

A faulty antenna apparently prevented the Progress M-58 cargo ship from hooking up quickly to the station, after a smooth docking, Lyndin said.

"The problem poses no danger to the station's crew," Lyndin said.

Lyndin explained that, while the ship had successfully docked at the station on autopilot, trouble arose later when the docking mechanisms failed to firmly attach the ship to the station - a process that is essential before pressurizing the connection to let the crew get access to supplies.

A Russian Space Agency spokesman, Igor Panarin, said the station's crew had enough supplies for a safe stay in orbit, even if the problem could not be fixed quickly. "The station's crew has sufficient reserves of oxygen, food and water in any case," Panarin said.

The Progress ship, which lifted off Monday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, was delivering about 2.3 metric tons of equipment, water and food, including dishes by the French celebrity chef Alain Ducasse.

It also brought equipment for repairing a Russian-built oxygen generator that overheated and spilled a toxic irritant last month, in the first emergency declared aboard the 8-year-old station.

mechanical problem     safe