A Russian spacecraft carrying an American and two Russians blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Monday in a faultless launch.

The successful lift-off of the Soyuz capsule has eased anxieties about the Russian space program and fate of the orbiting International Space Station after a series of recent Russian launch failures.

The supply mission to the ISS had been delayed for two months due to the crash of an unmanned Progress cargo ship in August.

The mishap cast doubts on future missions because the rocket being used had the same upper stage as the booster rockets carrying Soyuz capsules to orbit.

The US space agency, NASA, had warned that the ISS would have to be abandoned for the first time in nearly 11 years, if a new crew could not be sent before the last of the stations six residents fly back to Earth in mid-November.

Five breakdowns in a year

It was not the first and not the final glitch. Only a few days ago, on November 9, a Russian attempt to send a probe to the Martian moon Phobos failed with the breakdown of an engine after the launch. That carrier is hovering precariously in orbit and looks likely to crash.

It was, in fact, the fifth problem in the launch of a rocket in less than a year. Mostly, expensive satellites are the only thing lost.

However, it is about more than just financial losses. The future of the Russian space program is at stake – and with it the future of the International Space Station.

With the US shelving its space shuttle program in summer, Russia has taken over all the maintenance and supply of the ISS. Another breakdown could mean the end of the 100 billion euro program ($138 billion) which is supported by many nations, including Germany.

Safety is paramount

Russia, in fact, would like to celebrate the fact that it is some 50 years since cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. And there are successes. At the end of October, a Russian Soyuz rocket was launched into orbit- with no problems - for the first time from the European space port of Kourou in French Guiana.

However, the persistent breakdowns have been a cause for serious concern.

Security is a priority for the Russian space industry, according to Yuri Mukhin, author and editor of the Moscow space industry magazine “Novosti Kosmonavtiki.”

Mukhin says that Soyuz rockets have rightly enjoyed a reputation as the most reliable space rocket available for decades. With some 1,000 launches, the proportion of those where there is a major problem is less than one percent.

Dramatic failures

Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in 1967 when a parachute failed and his spacecraft Soyuz 1 came down on Earth at full force. Four years later, in the summer of 1971, came the worst disaster in the history of the Russian space program when three cosmonauts died as a result of a compression drop in their capsule.

However, for the past 40 years, the Russian space program has suffered no fatalities. The last major incident was on September 26, 1983, when a Soyuz rocket exploded on the launch pad in Baikonur. Space technician Trunitschev was only 100 meters away from the inferno.

“Just before the launch there was a crack in a pipe that had a highly explosive mixture in it. Only a few seconds before the explosion, the system was activated by radio,” Trunitschev said.

An emergency system saved the lives of the two cosmonauts inside. The craft was separated from the rocket and fired into the air, landing a number of kilometers from the burning launch pad. There were no casualties.

Questionable future for Russian space program

The most recent faults meant that the head of the Russian space authority Roskosmos, Anatoly Perminov, lost his post. In his farewell speech in spring he said that Russia had lost the space race with the United States. Washington, for instance, spends 80 percent more on space programs than Moscow.

For this reason, Perminov's successor is also going to be under pressure. Critics already say he is pushing too hard for a Mars mission - while the necessary technology is still not fully developed.

Despite all of this, expert Mukhin claims the Russian technology is as reliable as it can be. "This is highly complicated technology - it fails sometimes,” he said.

Author: Roman Goncharenko / gb, rc
Editor: Andreas Illmer