One of the antennas failed to deploy preventing docking

Apr 25, 2013 14:30 GMT  ·  By

Even after decades of experience, things can and do still go wrong during space launches. The Russian Progress capsule, a resupply ship for the International Space Station, has quite a few flights under its belt.

But that didn't guarantee that its latest would go smoothly. Shortly after the spacecraft reached orbit, a problem prevented one of its antenna's to deploy properly.

This antenna is used for navigation. The Progress capsule can still get close the ISS and even attempt an automated docking, but its movements are impaired.

But that's not the only problem, the way the antenna is positioned may prevent the ship from docking correctly with the ISS, specifically, the seal may not lock in hermetically.

That would make opening the docking bay impossible. As a last resort, astronauts aboard the ISS would have to perform a spacewalk to try and remedy the problem. Russian engineers are still trying to fix the problem remotely.