The United States warns the possibility of losing ISS

An American official said the possibility of losing the International Space Station (ISS) would increase significantly if Russia could not launch a spacecraft to send people there.

Michael Suffredini, director of the space station program of the US Aeronautics Agency (NASA), spoke with officials of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskomos) to discuss the ISS situation.

'If ISS operates in the absence of people, the risk of losing it will become larger than when people were there , ' AFP quoted Michael Suffredini.

Roskomos officials decided to postpone the flight to bring people to ISS - scheduled to take place on September 22. The decision was made after their unmanned transport ship Progress M-12M exploded on August 14 by a technical failure of the Soyuz rocket. Because the Soyuz rocket was used to launch both unmanned and human-powered transports, Russian officials feared the incident could be in trouble.

Roskomos hopes the flight carrying people to ISS will be carried out in late October or early November.

The crew on the ISS usually consists of six people. Every six months, three people will return to Earth and three will be taken to replace them. Currently three Russians, two Americans and a Japanese are working on it. But due to the delayed launch of the ship, the three returning astronauts will have to stay on the ISS for a while longer. If Russia cannot launch ships to send people to ISS, it is likely that the entire crew on it will have to return in mid-November.

'We do not want ISS to operate in the absence of people. But if the systems on the ISS continue to operate after the crew returns, we can control it from the ground and it will fly in orbit for an unlimited amount of time , 'Suffredini said.

ISS is a space station built by Russia, the United States, the European Union, Japan and Canada since 1998. NASA had intended to evacuate the entire astronaut on ISS after the Columbia ship accident caused 7 houses. traveling in the ship died in 2003. However, this plan was canceled.