By Leah Crane

The only ride to the International Space Station is back in business. Early Wednesday morning, Roscosmos launched the uncrewed Progress MS-05 spacecraft to the ISS aboard a Soyuz rocket the first Soyuz launch since Decembers unsuccessful Progress MS-04, which burned up in Earths atmosphere.

The loss of that rocket left future astronauts in a tenuous position. The Soyuz rocket is currently the only available ride to the space station, so until it was proven safe, no more astronauts could make the journey. That crafts failure resulted in the loss of 2,450 kilograms of food, water, fuel, and equipment but a failure with humans aboard could be a true disaster.

The Russian commission investigating MS-04s launch failure found that it may have been due to defective workmanship in the third stage of the three-stage rocket. Six minutes after a successful-looking launch, the third stage and the Progress capsule appeared to separate prematurely. Most of the resulting debris burned up in Earths atmosphere, and a few fragments fell in the Tuva region of Russia.

When it reaches the ISS on Friday, Progress MS-05 will replace the lost supplies although theyre not running low yet. Consumables aboard the station are at good levels, Mark Garcia posted on NASAs Space Station blog after the MS-04 incident.

More options for sending astronauts to the station are in the works: SpaceXs Crew Dragon is expected to start shuttling astronauts on top of a Falcon 9 rocket at the end of 2017. Boeings CST-100 is also scheduled to start its uncrewed testing around the same time, aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

More on these topics:

View original post here:

Successful Russian launch re-paves the way to space station - New Scientist