(Image source: NASA / Spaceflight Now)

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN
ANCHOR ANTHONY MARTINEZ

A Sunday morning rocket launch has space agencies the world over breathing a sigh of relief.

“A Russian supply spaceship blasted off from Kazakhstan headed to the International Space Station. It’s the first Soyuz rocket to launch since a similar launch failed back in August.” (Video source: MSNBC)

The August failure sent an unmanned Progress cargo capsule crashing into Siberia. Russia’s space agency scrambled to figure out what went wrong and grounded all other Soyuz launches.

NASA explains what they found.

“With impressive speed, a Russian commission quickly determined the cause of the failure to be a blocked fuel line … While the blocked fuel line was attributed to a random, one-off event caused by human error in vehicle processing, all Soyuz third stages were ordered to be sent back to their assembly plant for [thorough] testing.”

So it was a tense moment leading up to Sunday’s launch. The Station is currently running on a three-person crew instead of the usual six, and those three are scheduled to come home next month. A writer for Universe Today explains what that would mean.

“The very future of the International Space Station was on the line this morning … If this Progress flight had failed, the ISS would have had to be left in an uncrewed state for the first time since continuous manned occupation began more than 10 years ago...”

An unmanned station would be much more vulnerable in an emergency. But since this launch was a success, it clears the way to get more crew members up to the station before the current crew leaves.

It will still take three days for this capsule to reach the ISS, which hasn’t had a resupply since August. RT tells us what it’s carrying.

“Well, the rocket will carry a Progress cargo spaceship into orbit. And this unmanned vehicle will deliver almost three tons of supplies to the International Space Station. Among them: food, water and clothes along with oxygen, spare parts and experiment hardware.”

Progress is also carrying two iPad tablets -- the first tablets to be used in space.

Transcript by Newsy.