Russia, Astronomy | featured news

When the United States embarked on its shuttle program decades ago, it set out to build a workhorse vehicle that would make space travel routine and beat the Soviets during the Cold War struggle for dominance in space.

A runaway supply ship that failed to dock at the International Space Station on Friday made good on a second attempt Sunday afternoon.

The unmanned Russian Progress 38 cargo ship launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 30, 2010 carrying 2.5 tons of supplies for the station's Expedition 24 crew. An unmanned Russian cargo ship has veered out of control near the International Space Station, sailing clear past the orbiting lab instead of docking on autopilot, as engineers on Earth struggle to determine what went wrong.

Russia's space chief said Wednesday his agency will consider sending a spacecraft to a large asteroid to knock it off its path and prevent a possible collision with Earth.