Astronauts mull leaving space station unmanned after Soyuz problems

Sep 6, 2011, 15:52 GMT

Washington - US astronauts on Tuesday stressed the value of having a manned International Space Station (ISS), as concerns mount that it may need to be temporarily abandoned because of problems with Russia's Soyuz spacecraft.

An unmanned Russian Progress cargo rocket bound for the ISS failed last month, raising concerns about its motor that is also used on the manned Soyuz craft. Since the retirement of the US space shuttle in July, the Russian craft are the only ones capable of bringing humans into space.

'The space station does require some care and feeding,' astronaut Mike Fossum said in a press conference from the ISS, as he emphasized the importance of having a manned space station.

'As events unfold, if that's not possible and we have to shut it down for a little while we're going to leave it in the best possible condition so (the) next crew can turn on the lights and get it up and running.'

The Russian space agency is currently working to identify and fix the problem on what had been considered among the safest and most reliable spacecraft.

US space agency NASA has said that if the problems are not identified and solved by mid-November, all of the station's astronauts would be brought back to Earth.

Three of the station's six-member crew are already scheduled to return home on September 15, and officials hope that three more astronauts will be cleared to fly before the rest of the current crew must return home in November.

Otherwise, the station that has been home to a permanent human presence in space for nearly 11 years might be left uninhabited.

In the meantime while ground engineers troubleshoot the problem, the ISS crew is considering how to handover the station either in a short time frame, or remotely after they have left the station unmanned. But the main focus remains on preparing three of the crew to head home and for scientific research to continue.

'It's too early for us to get too worried about that quite frankly,' Fossum said.