Russian spaceship reaches space station

A Russian spacecraft carrying a new crew docked smoothly with the international space station today, as US and Russian space officials on the ground argued over the conditions for future missions.

The Soyuz TMA-4, working on autopilot, docked three minutes ahead of schedule two days after blasting off on a rocket from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Carrying three astronauts, it was the third Russian spacecraft to fill in for the US space shuttle, which has been suspended since the Columbia disaster.

Russian commander Gennady Padalka and American flight engineer Michael Fincke’s mission will be to maintain the orbital outpost, the assembly of which has been on hold since the February 2003 disaster. Andre Kuipers of the Netherlands is going on a nine-day mission to conduct experiments for the European Space Agency.

Flight engineers monitoring the docking at Russian Mission Control in Korolyov, outside Moscow, broke into applause as a camera on the spacecraft showed the successful docking.

“I would like to thank the Russian space Agency for again providing an excellent launch, an excellent ride and an excellent docking as we continue this great friendship and journey together.

We appreciate everything that has been done,” Fred Gregory, deputy administrator of the US space agency NASA, said.

His comments appeared to be an attempt to answer Russia’s increasingly frequent complaints that its efforts to keep the space station manned at the expense of its own programmes are underappreciated.

Since Columbia disintegrated while returning to Earth on February 1, 2003, the US manned space programme has been on hold, leaving Russia’s non-reusable Soyuz capsules as the only means of getting crew to and from the station.

Russia wants to extend the crews’ missions from six months to a year, but Gregory said that it would be “premature” to extend the missions beginning with the next expedition.

“We would like to delay any further discussions on this until we (US space shuttles) return to flight, which would be scheduled for next March, when we can assure that all the operating systems, life support systems, are operating,” Gregory said.

The head of the company that builds Russia’s Soyuz and Progress spacecraft insisted that Moscow would have its way.

“Our position is rigid: The next crew must make a long flight. I would urge the American colleagues not to drag their feet on solving this issue,” said Yuri Semyonov, director of the Energiya company. “

We are ready for long flights. Our equipment is ready for that. Our partners must listen to their Russian colleagues.”

Padalka and Fincke, who were initially trained to fly on a US shuttle, are to conduct two spacewalks during their 183-day stint on the space station. Kuipers is scheduled to return on April 30 with the station’s current crew, British-born astronaut Michael Foale and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri, who have been in orbit since October.