The problems for Russia's space agency seem to continue. The Russian Space Agency said that after a failed first attempt to start the engines of the Progress spacecraft on the International Space Station, they managed to get them started on the second attempt to correct the orbit of the ISS.
"On Sunday night, the orbit of the ISS was successfully corrected," Roscosmos told Russian news agencies, 48 hours after the initial attempt to switch on the spacecraft's engines proved unsuccessful.
The International Space Station is now at the right altitude for its three crew members to return to Earth in early June. The operation itself began around 3:30 a.m. Moscow time and took about a half an hour to complete.
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has been sent into crisis after a series of embarrassing failures in recent weeks. This has prompted fury by politicians and has resulted in Moscow launching an inquiry into the space industry after firing its previous head just last year.
Just hours after the first failed attempt of moving the orbit of the ISS, Russia also lost a Mexican telecommunications satellite following the failed launch of the Proton-M carrier rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev immediately launched an investigation into the incident, demanding answers from the head of the space agency.
"This accident is the consequence of a systematic crisis in the (space) industry," deputy prime minister in charge of the aerospace sector, Dmitry Rogozin, said in a statement, adding that a new bill on Roscosmos would be put before Russia's parliament on Tuesday.
Last week's accidents came less than a month after an unmanned Progress spacecraft loaded with supplies for the International Space Station lost contact with Earth shortly after take-off resulting in the craft returning and burning up in the atmosphere less than two weeks later.
Russia is currently reforming its space industry, but experts believe that years of underfunding means that now there is a shortage in new-generation specialists to replace those originally recruited during the Soviet era.
"For 20 years, the sector has not been funded and the staff not trained," MP Valeri Gartoung, who heads the commission for the space industry in Russia's parliament, was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
The successful operation of the Progress M-26M spacecraft means that three astronauts currently stationed on the ISS can return to Earth within weeks. Their return was delayed by a month after the failure of the April mission. The new team, set to take their replace, was originally scheduled to take off on May 26, but now they are due to join the station at the end of July.
