BY MADISON MACK

ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY

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The International Space Station could be flying solo as soon as November. Fox News explains

“Now remember we don’t have a way to shuttle astronauts back and forth anymore because the shuttle program is over so we have to rely solely on the Russians and their Soyuz rocket but last week the Soyuz, a cargo ship which is the same type used to shuttle astronauts up, it launched, it failed, it fell out of the sky.”

“They were supposed to send astronauts up next month. They’re not about to put human beings aboard that rocket until they figure out exactly what went wrong."

According to The Moscow Times – the Russian Federal Space Agency is currently investigating the cause of the Soyuz rocket failure.
Prime Minister Putin has ordered an overhaul of the rocket’s safety
But if the rockets are not cleared for launch by the time the remaining ISS crew must return to Earth – NASA will be forced to operate the space station remotely a move which the space station’s program manager says wouldn’t be unprecedented nor a disaster.

“We know how to do this…”
"Assuming the systems keep operating, like I've said, we can command the vehicle from the ground and operate it fine, and remain on orbit indefinitely."

The station has been continuously manned for over a decade and a writer for the BBC says – for Americans - an empty station would be a blow to morale.

“Having lost the use of the shuttle, the orbiting outpost is now the core of their human spaceflight programme. It wouldn't sit well to see it flying overhead with no-one inside. … It would be a blow also to the image of the station and its scientific programme.”

A blogger for DVICE adds - whole situation epitomizes the problem of having only one way to get astronauts to the ISS.

“…the fact that it's an issue so soon after the decommissioning of the shuttle fleet and comes after Roskosmos proudly declared it to be the ‘age of Soyuz’ just intensifies the irony. It's not that there's anything wrong with relying on the Russians specifically, it's more that just having one single reliable space transport system is just not reliable in the long run...”

NASA has already signed a 12-flight contract with the American space transport company SpaceX to haul cargo to the International Space Station, which could begin as early as next year.



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