Russian ship launched

MOSCOW -- Russia launched an unmanned cargo ship to the international space station Sunday, a day after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia threw into doubt future missions to the orbiting complex.\nThe Progress M-47 lifted off atop a Soyuz-U rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:59 p.m. and entered orbit a few minutes later, said Nikolai Kryuchkov, a spokesman at Russia's mission control center outside Moscow.\nThe craft is scheduled to dock with the station Tuesday, delivering fuel, equipment, food and mail for the three-astronaut crew -- a Russian commander and two Americans.\nThe long-planned launch came as stunned Russian space officials offered condolences for the astronauts -- six Americans and one Israeli -- killed when the Columbia disintegrated shortly before it was to have landed Saturday morning.\nThey said the disaster may put Moscow's cash-strapped space program under more pressure to deliver crews and supplies to the station.\n"This is a big tragedy for us," said Vladimir Solovyov, head of Russia's mission control center. "We knew every member of the Columbia crew personally except for the Israeli astronaut."\nCosmonaut Yuri Usachev, who commanded the space station's second crew in 2001, said he and his colleagues were feeling the tragedy as a "personal loss."\n"I believe yesterday's tragedy will have a big influence on the future of the international space station," he told TVS television. "Probably for a certain amount of time the accent will shift to Russian systems of delivery of cargo and crews."\nNASA plans had called for expanding the international space station, or ISS, during five shuttle flights this year. But space shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said Saturday that flights would be put on hold until officials determine what caused the Columbia to break up.\nRussian space officials have said they are ready to pick up some of the slack in the meantime with their own spacecraft, including manned Soyuz TMA capsules. More would need to be built, however, and funds are scarce.