TIM FURNISS / LONDON
Russia has agreed to release $38 million of funding ahead of schedule to accelerate construction of crew and cargo vehicles required to keep the International Space Station (ISS) manned while the Space Shuttle remains grounded. Efforts to secure the additional funding from NASA and its ISS partners failed. The money was originally budgeted for the second half of the year.
The Russian cabinet has also tentatively agreed to increase funding for the Space Station programme from $130 million this year to over $240 million in 2004. Without the extra funding, the ISS would have to be mothballed, warns Russian space agency head Yuri Koptev. But Yuri Semenov, head of Energia Aerospace, denies the partners are considering leaving the ISS unmanned.
The schedule of Russian launches from Baikonur to the ISS includes five spacecraft this year and seven in 2004, says Semenov. Soyuz TMA-2 will launch on 26 April, carrying Yuri Malenchenko and Ed Lu to form the seventh expedition crew, with the three-member sixth crew now on board returning in TMA-1, already docked at the ISS. The Progress M-1-10 unmanned re-supply vehicle will be launched on 8 June, followed in August by Progress M-48.
Soyuz TMA-3 will launch on 18 October carrying the eighth expedition crew, Michael Foale and Alexander Kaleri, with Spaniard Pedro Duque, who will return with the seventh crew in TMA-2. Progress M-1-11 will follow on 20 November.
Five Progress re-supply vehicles and two Soyuz TMA crew transports will be launched in 2004, starting with Progress M-49 in January, followed on 20 April by Soyuz TMA-4 with the ninth expedition crew and a visiting astronaut from the Netherlands. Progress M-50 and M-51 will be slotted between January and July and Progress M-52 will be launched in August, followed by Soyuz TMA-5, with the tenth expedition crew, in November. Progress M-53 will follow in December.
Source: Flight International
