ISS mission prolonged over landing site issues

by Yuliya Talmazan | April 5, 2009 at 03:11 pm

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The International Space Station mission will be delayed until April 8 due to the recently discovered problems with the scheduled landing site for Soyuz TMA-13 carrying astronauts Yury Lonchakov (Russia) and Michael Fincke (USA), as well as space tourist and billionaire Charles Simonyi (Hungary/USA) on board. After close inspection, the testing team discovered that the scheduled landing site was a swamp and is thus not suitable for Soyuz spacecraft landing. Russian space agency Roskosmos has to finalize a new landing site now. As the result of the delay, the last space tourist ever (for now at least) Charles Simonyi will get one more day of space flight for free. This is the second space expidition for Simonyi. In April of 2007, he was returning aboard Soyuz TMA-9, which similarly got delayed allowing for a one-day free stay for Simonyi, same crazy luck for the former head of Microsoft's application software group.

Russia spacecraft Soyuz TMA-13 will spend one extra day in orbit. The return was delayed after reconnaissance discovered that the region chosen for landing turned out to be swamp.

“The landing was delayed from April 7 to April 8. The time and location are now being reconsidered,” a source told Interfax-AVN news agency.

According to the source, a helicopter, which was sent to observe the location assigned for Soyuz landing, found it to be swamp. The reconnaissance vehicle managed to land, but got stuck and had trouble lifting into the air again.

The evacuation team, which is sent to pick up crews of spacecraft returning to Earth, won’t be able to work normally in the region. To avoid the quagmire, the current mission to the ISS has been extended by one day.

The change of schedule was confirmed by space officials, but they didn’t comment on the reasons why. They said the exact time for landing has not yet been set.

“The preliminary time of landing is 11:24 Moscow time. The time is not final. The calculations are not over,” Roskosmos spokesman Aleksandr Vorobyev said.

The delay is good news for private space flight participant Charles Simonyi, who gets an extra day in orbit for his money. He paid $35 million for his second ticket to the International Space Station.

“During his last flight in 2007 Simonyi got lucky too. His trip to the ISS was delayed by several days and he made the record among space tourists in the time spent in the orbit,” an unnamed space industry official told the agency.

The billionaire’s last space adventure lasted 13 days and 19 hours.

Soyuz TMA-13 blasted off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 2008. The space capsule is to take back to Earth members of Expedition 18 Yury Lonchakov and Michael Finckeas, as well as Charles Simonyi, who traveled to the ISS in March this year.