Space station mission postponed

KOROLYOV, Russia (AP) -- The launch of a cargo ship to begin the destruction of the Mir space station has been delayed because of a power failure.

The Progress cargo ship was due to have blasted off from Kazakstan on Thursday, but Russian Mission Control has now been postponed the mission for at least four to five days.

Power failures in the past have been tackled by crews on board the Mir, but the space station has been unmanned since last summer and is scheduled to be destroyed in March.

Mission Control chief Vladimir Solovyov announced just hours before the cargo ship was to have taken off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome that problems developed overnight on the Mir.

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"The voltage on board some modules dropped below the norm, that is, below 27 volts. This has led to the emergency braking of gyroscopes, the steering bodies that control the station's orientation," Solovyov said.

The gyroscopes keep the station stable, which is necessary for a cargo ship to dock. Even a manned cargo ship would have difficulty docking with the station if it were not stable.

Solovyov said a decision on whether to send a manned mission to the Mir would be made by the end of January. It takes two days to reach the station from Earth.

The power failure was the latest of a long series of problems aboard the 15-year-old station.

The Russian Government decided last year to discard the Mir and concentrate resources on the new International Space Station, which the U.S. has urged for years.

The Russian space agency has tentatively scheduled the destruction of the Mir for March 6.

After fuel from the Progress is taken on board, Russian ground controllers will fire rockets on the 140-ton station to slow its orbit and send it hurtling into the thicker layers of Earth's atmosphere, where most of the station will burn up.

Some parts are expected to survive re-entry and splash into the Pacific Ocean east of Australia.

The space station has survived several accidents, including a fire and a near-fatal collision with an unmanned cargo ship in 1997.

The latest glitch occurred in late December, when ground controllers lost radio control with the orbiter, stoking fears of an uncontrolled fall to Earth.

Officials blamed that failure on a sudden and unexplained loss of power.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.