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Next Progress space freighter to be launched on October 30

The agency is holding consultations with NASA to updated plans of the upcoming expeditions to the International Space Station (ISS)

MOSCOW, September 13 (Itar-Tass) —— The next Progress space freighter will be launched on October 30, 2011, the Federal Space Agency said on Tuesday.

“It is planned to launch Progress cargo spaceships on October 30, 2011, and on January 26, 2012. Manned Soyuz spaceships will be launched on November 12 and December 20, 2011,” the agency said.

The agency is holding consultations with NASA to updated plans of the upcoming expeditions to the International Space Station (ISS).

The launch of the latest Progress spaceship was unsuccessful. Fragments of Progress M-12M fell over the Republic of Altai on August 24, and the aerial search for them started on August 31. Land teams questioned shepherds, foresters and other possible eyewitnesses. No fragments were found, which might prove the theory that the rocket fragments burned in the atmosphere.

The Altai republican department of the Federal Consumer Rights and Human Well Being Service stopped taking soil and water samples for heptyl tests in the area of the supposed fall of fragments of the Progress M-12M freighter on September 10.

All the samples taken in the past two weeks around the village of Karakoksha and the local rivers proved negative. Radiation measurements had been normal, too.

The sanitary and epidemiological monitoring started immediately after the accident and was extended twice, the last time until September 10. The freighter had over 2.6 tonnes of cargo onboard. Heptyl, a highly toxic rocket fuel, may present a potential danger. An aerospace industry source told Itar-Tass that the freighter was carrying about 800 kilograms of heptyl to the International Space Station (ISS).