INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
the International Space Station since a Russian rocket failed to launch earlier this month may take off on Dec
3, space agency Roscosmos said on Wednesday.A Russian cosmonaut and U.S
astronaut were forced to abort their mission on Oct
11 and perform an emergency landing after a launch accident that Roscomos said was caused by a faulty sensor.The accident was the first
serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983, when a crew narrowly escaped before a launch pad
explosion.Sergei Krikalyov, a senior Roscosmos official, was quoted by state news agency TASS as saying the next manned launch had been
planned for mid-December, but that Russia was trying to bring the date forward so that the ISS is not briefly left without a crew.The
three-person crew may return home on Dec
20, he was quoted as saying."The industry is making significant efforts to move the launch to Dec
3 so that the station does not switch to autopilot mode, and landing is expected around Dec
20," he said.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated
