A software glitch on a Russian spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station delayed the arrival of three astronauts, including one America, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
The Soyuz spacecraft carrying Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA's Steve Swanson launched successfully early today, March 26, and was supposed to dock six hours later.
The glitch caused their arrival to be pushed back until late Thursday, March 27, however.
Since the U.S. space shuttle fleet was retired in 2011, NASA has counted on the Russian spacecraft to send crews to the ISS.
It is paying Russia nearly $71 million per seat, according to Bloomberg.
Surprisingly, their cooperation has not changed despite current tensions between the two companies.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has publicly stated on a number of occasions that the conflict in Ukraine would have no effect on the U.S.-Russian partnership.
NASA continues to cooperate successfully with Russia, though it still wants to get its own capacity to launch crews "as quickly as possible," according to Bloomberg.
NASA is hoping American companies' efforts speed up to launch crews into orbit without assistance from Russia, but it needs more funding.
The Soyuz rocket launched as scheduled at 3:17 a.m. today, (2117 GMT Tuesday) from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, according to NASA.
The rocket entered a previously designated orbit around 10 minutes after the launch and was supposed to reach the ISS in just six hours.
Onboard systems were working fine, and the crew was doing okay at press time.
NASA and Roscosmos (Russia's space agency) confirmed before the scheduled docking that the arrival had to be delayed after a 24-second engine burn, used to adjust the spacecraft's orbiting path, did not occur as planned.
The glitch occurred due to an issue in the ship's orientation system, according to NASA.
An arrival is now scheduled for 7:58 p.m. EDT Thursday.
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