NASA breathes easy as Roscosmos determines reason for Soyuz crash

In what will come as a substantial relief for NASA and Roscosmos officials, Russian scientists say they have identified the glitch that caused the crash last week of a Soyuz-U rocket that was carrying a cargo capsule to the International Space station (ISS).

A spokesperson for the Federal Space Agency (Roscomos) told Russian news agency Itar-Tass that the failure was caused by the rocket's third-stage engine. "It is a malfunction in the engine's gas generator," he said.

The announcement is particularly significant as the transport of supplies and crew to the ISS in the immediate future depended on the Russians being able to determine what went wrong with the rocket and then fix it before a November deadline.

The third stage of the Soyuz-U rocket, which blew up over Russia's Altai region last week, was carrying supplies, not people, but a very similar capsule would be used to ferry crew and scientists to and from the space station.

A failure to identify the problem in time would have resulted, in some scenarios atleast, to the ISS being temporarily abandoned.

"We're focused on keeping the crew safe. Our next focus is on keeping the ISS manned," Mike Suffredini, the NASA representative who heads the ISS mission, was quoted as saying in various media reports. "Flying safely is much, much more important than anything else I can think about right this instant."

Though the ISS has been continuously manned for more than a decade Suffredini has said the space station can be operated from ground stations. But having a crew on board is the preferred option as crew members can respond to problems on the space station before any major damage is done.