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Russian Spacecraft Failure Delays Launch of International Space Station Crew

The International Space Station

The launch of the next crew to the International Space Station (ISS) has been postponed to late July after the loss of a Russian unmanned resupply ship last month forced the U.S. and Russian space agencies to rework launch schedules to the station.

The launch of the new crew was originally scheduled to take place on May 26 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but an unidentified source at the spaceport told Russian news agency TASS Wednesday the date had been postponed to July 24.

NASA, which co-manages ISS with Russian federal space agency Roscosmos, has not corroborated the date but in a statement published on its website Tuesday said the next crew would not fly until late July, after a new unmanned Progress resupply vehicle is launched to resupply the station and its international crew.

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