Russia sends rocket despite disaster

A RUSSIAN cargo rocket carrying food and fuel blasted off for the International Space Station yesterday, a day after the US shuttle Columbia broke, killing seven astronauts.

“The launch has gone ahead as planned. So far, everything is fine,” said a spokesman at ground control just outside Moscow.

Russian experts, speaking at the launch of the Progress rocket at Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe, said the Columbia disaster could prove a serious setback for the ambitious 16-nation ISS programme.

Sergei Gorbunov, a spokesman for Russia's space agency, said work on the $95 billion station would be reduced until launches of US shuttles, used for heavy payloads, could be resumed.

“Cosmonauts will be able to carry out various scientific experiments,” Mr Gorbunov said. “But we have to forget about further construction work on the station until launches of US shuttles, used to carry large pieces of equipment, resume.”

NASA has put all shuttle flights on hold while it investigates the Columbia tragedy. Mr Gorbunov said he thought shuttles would be grounded “for at least a year”, making the ISS dependent on Russia’s Soyuz passenger craft and Progress cargo ship.

The Progress is carrying enough food and supplies to keep the ISS’s current three-strong crew in orbit for two months beyond their scheduled March departure.

The current team of two American astronauts and one Russian, aboard the ISS since November, was due to be replaced by a crew on the US shuttle Atlantis, now unlikely to be launched on schedule. But Mr Gorbunov said the crew could return aboard their Russian-made Soyuz lifeboat.