Persistent risk despite Soyuz flight

摘要

The Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft that carried the Expedition 29/30 crew to the International Space Station on 14 November ensured the ISS would remain occupied for the foreseeable future, a capability threatened by the recent grounding of Russia's manned flight programme. The launch of the Soyuz-FG rocket occurred at 04:14:03hr GMT, carrying Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoli Ivanishin and Daniel Burbank to the station two days later. When a second stage failure to the Progress M-12M launch vehicle on 24 August 2011 left it with insufficient velocity to reach orbit, doubts were cast upon the probability of keeping the ISS manned throughout the winter.