In other space tech news, Russian ships, currently the only way to get cargo and people to the space station, have been delayed from their initial plan of launch due to a malfunction yet to be explained. The US space shuttles remain grounded since the February 2003 incident of the Columbia space shuttle crash.
Russia is tentatively rescheduling the launch of the next crew of the International Space Station by three days, from Oct. 11 to Oct. 14, foreign news media reported Thursday from Moscow.
Russian Federal Space Agency officials said they will finalize the date and time today. The Soyuz TMA-5 is poised to take U.S. astronaut Leroy Chiao and Russian cosmonauts Salizhan Sharipov and Yuri Shargin to the station.