NASA says will use Russia's Soyuz despite rocket failure

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine on Friday praised the Russian space programme and said he expected a new crew to go to the International Space Station in December despite a rocket failure. "I fully anticipate that we will fly again on a Soyuz rocket and I have no reason to believe at this point that it will not be on schedule," he told reporters.
The NASA administrator spoke to reporters at the US embassy in Moscow a day after a Soyuz rocket failure forced Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin and US astronaut Nick Hague to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff in Kazakhstan. The pair escaped unharmed.
It was the first such incident in Russia's post-Soviet history - an unprecedented setback for the country's space industry. The Soviet-designed Soyuz rocket is currently the world's only lifeline to the International Space Station and the accident will affect both NASA and the work of the orbiting laboratory. Bridenstine, who is visiting Russia and Kazakhstan for the first time since his appointment as NASA chief this year, observed the launch from Baikonur cosmodrome with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Rogozin.
Appearing at times emotional, he said he was "confident" a new manned mission to the ISS would go ahead as planned in December, praising the "wonderful relationship" between the Russian and US space agencies. "Not every mission that fails, ends up so successful," he said.
The next Soyuz launch had been scheduled to take a new crew to the ISS on December 20. Russia said earlier Friday it was likely to bring forward the flight of a new manned space mission but postpone the launch of a cargo ship scheduled for October 31. "We will try to bring forward the launch of a new crew," said Sergei Krikalyov, executive director of the Russian space agency and veteran cosmonaut.
He did not provide further details and a Roscosmos spokeswoman told AFP that the space agency currently does not have a new schedule of launches. All manned launches have been suspended and a criminal probe has been launched. When asked about the accident, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he was "not at all worried" that Americans had to rely on Russians to go to space.