©copyright 1996 Keith Cowing and Reston Communications
According to a 17 November Reuters story by Steven Young, cosmonaut Anatoli Solovyev has been removed from the crew of the first ISS mission and reassigned to a 1997 Mir mission. Solovyev will be replaced by cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko. This first ISS mission is to be commanded by astronaut William Shepherd with the crew scheduled for launch in May 1998 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Tensions have been mounting since the announcement by the US that Shepherd would be commander of this first mission. On 23 October, an Interfax news story surfaced which made mention of an official communication between the Russian Duma and Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin's office which said : ``Despite the Russian efforts to make experienced cosmonaut Solovyev the crew commander, the American side is preemptorily insisting on the candidacy of American astronaut Shepherd.'' In a reference to Shepherd's lack of familarity with Russian spacecraft, the story stated that ``experienced Russian crew commanders doubt the expediency of their participation in the joint flight in a secondary capacity".
According to Reuters, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project commander Tom Stafford was reportedly brought in to resolve the dispute. Stafford has proposed that Bill Shepherd be named as ``expedition commander'' and that Gidzenko be named ``technical manager of the Russian segment.''This issue will likely surface again as the US and Russia hammer out an agreement regarding a new schedule for delivery of Russian space station components.
Meanwhile, confirmation should be coming rather soon that the Russians have indeed fallen too far behind with the Service Module to keep all of ISS on its current schedule and that a 3-6 month (minimum) schedule slip is now needed. Rumors are also circulating that Boeing would not mind at a little breathing room either. A plan for helping everyone get back on schedule is nearing completion with multiple options are under consideration. The main choices seem to be as follows: converting the Service Module effort into a contracted operation (as is the case with the FGB); buying a second copy of the FGB and perhaps fiddling with it to get some portion of the Service Module's functionality; or having MSFC or Lockheed-Martin build a propulsion module to replace the Service Module all together.
In any case, additional money will be needed - that is likely to be the most difficult issue to resolve - especially with NASA's annual budget on the downslope towards $11.8 billion. In addition, the negative environment caused by the unfortunate failure of Mars 96 (due to booster problems, lack of funds, and hasty hardware preparation) coupled with the the delayed launching of 2 successive Progress resupply missions, and the Bion satellite (due to budget problems), is certainly not going to make the situation any easier to fix.
Nor will it inspire confidence in Russia's ability to do things on time, within budget, and according to specs.