Russia delays launch of Soyuz spacecraft

The launch schedule for manned Russian missions has been thrown into disarray by the Aug 24 crash of an unmanned Soyuz supply craft into the remote Siberian wilderness. It was the 44th launch of a Progress supply ship to the space station but the first failure in the life of the complex.The August accident delayed the next Soyuz mission, because the upper stage of the unmanned rocket carrying the Progress supply ship that failed was similar to that used to launch astronauts.Since phasing out the US space shuttle program earlier this year, NASA is relying entirely on Russia to get American and other astronauts to the international space station. The new Russian launch date of Nov. 12 is just days before the remaining astronauts on the orbiting laboratory are due to return to Earth.