A Soyuz-U booster rocket with an unmanned Progress M-65 cargo ship successfully launched towards the International Space Station (ISS), with a cargo of supplies, equipment, food, and gifts for astronauts on the ISS.  Russian Mission Control will be responsible for keeping the ship in orbit around the ISS until it is safe to have it dock with the multi-billion space station.  

Russian space officials expect the Progress ship to reach the ISS sometime late this evening, but it will not dock until next week.  NASA astronaut Gregory Chamitoff and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Konenko and Sergei Volkov will receive 2.5 tons of oxygen, food and water, along with a modified Russian space suit and other items.

Mother Nature has given NASA several problems in the month of September, as the U.S. space agency prepares for the early October launch of shuttle Atlantis.  The Johnson Space Center has been closed because Hurricane Ike is looming near the Texas coast.  A temporary control center has been constructed in Austin, Texas, and all communications will be routed through the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.  Astronaut training activities for the next two shuttle launches also had to be postponed until it's safe to return back to the space center, NASA officials said.  

The next manned shuttle launch will take place on October 10.

In addition to causing problems here on Earth, Hurricane Ike also caused a one-day delay, from today until next Wednesday, for Progress to dock at the ISS.

The ever confusing situation of the U.S. shuttle retirement in 2010 has left the European Space Agency (ESA) also in the hands of the Russian space agency for the next few years, European news publications have reported.  Even though NASA and the ESA worked together to design the X-38 experimental space craft, the project was never finished.

If there is an emergency aboard the ISS, Russia will be the only nation capable of sending additional supplies and astronauts into space, which is a situation that leaves both NASA and the ESA uncomfortable.  Tensions boiled over when Russia invaded Georgia, with U.S. politicians scrambling to try and see if it would be safe to delay the shuttle retirement until Orion is closer to completion.  Furthermore, NASA officials and politicians are weary of working with Russia to send astronauts and American supplies to space because of the increased political tension between the two nations.