An attempt on Wednesday to raise the orbit of the International Space Station by 10 kilometres has failed.
The engines of a Progress M-54 cargo ship, attached to the ISS, were supposed
to boost the ISS. But a number of the engines shut down shortly after the start of the manoeuvre, an official at Russia鈥檚 mission control centre told the RIA-Novosti news agency.
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鈥淎t roughly the 117th second of the operation, several engines shut down by themselves,鈥� the official said. 鈥淭he orbit correction attempt was suspended and experts are now examining the reasons.鈥� Officials want to establish what went wrong before attempting the operation again.
The ISS is currently home to a Russian cosmonaut, Valery Tokarev, and US
astronaut William McArthur.
The orbit boost was to prepare the ISS for docking with another cargo vehicle, Progress M-55, due to launch on 21 December 2005. Officials say plenty of time remains to complete the orbit correction and that the current ISS orbit is not a cause for concern.
Also on Wednesday, an official from Russia鈥檚 Roscosmos space agency announced that scientists had lost control of Russia鈥檚 new Earth-monitoring satellite. The satellite, called Monitor-E, was intended map and monitor pollution, amongst other research.
Mission controllers had done 鈥渆verything possible to bring the apparatus back under control, but so far have not succeeded鈥�, said Vyacheslav Davidenko, from Roscosmos.
