NASA confirms plans to return the crew to the ISS on Thursday – RIA Novosti

WASHINGTON – June 10, RIA Novosti reported. abnormal engine start docked to the ISS Russian “Soyuz” does not pose a threat to the crew and the station and did not affect the plans to return astronauts to Earth on Thursday, NASA said.

On Tuesday engines “Union” Nonstandard start when scheduled testing radio rendezvous and docking of the ISS and the space shuttle. As a result, the position of the ISS has changed little, but it was stable.

“have been taken immediate action to change the spatial position of the ISS. There was created a threat to the crew or the station itself, the incident will not affect the return scheduled for Thursday” Soyuz TMA -15M “Earth” – said NASA in connection with the incident.

At the moment the ISS passes ceremony of transfer of command station. It is expected that on Thursday will leave the station, crew commander, NASA astronaut Terry Verts, flight engineer Samantha Kristoferetti and engineer Anton Shkaplerov. The command will move Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka.

NASA said that Roscosmos is investigating the cause of the incident.

As reported by RIA Novosti source in the space industry, to a sudden start of the engine of the spacecraft “Soyuz” could lead the failure of the system under test “Course” and the error of its specialists during the test.