NASA officially announced a delay in launching astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in this calendar year, but SpaceX (News - Alert) might get an earlier shot at its supply flight demo. The next Russian Soyuz flight to deliver crew to the space station has been pushed back to a May 15 target launch date. Improper testing on the Soyuz descent capsule scheduled for launch on March 30 ended up trashing the vehicle, so Russia is now moving up processing of the next capsule in line for a later launch.

According to Russian Space Web, the TMA-04M crew capsule was overpressurized to at three to four atmospheres during testing on January 22, blowing out welds and rendering the capsule unsalvageable. It isn't yet clear why testers blew past the normal 1.3 to 1.5 atmospheres specification used in testing, but the excessive pressure damaged the capsule beyond repair.

On a February 2 press call, ISS program manager Mike Suffredini did not seem to be concerned about the issue. “I have every confidence that they’ll figure out the cause of this and rectify it for the future,” he told reporters.

The delay in the manned Soyuz launch now opens up an earlier window for SpaceX to perform its COTS 2/3 ISS supply demonstration. Before the Soyuz capsule fiasco, SpaceX wasn't realistically expected to get the demonstration flight and berthing to ISS until late April. With the delay, SpaceX has been penciled in for a March 20 launch date for its Falcon 9/Dragon combination at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Suffredini didn't sound confident the company would be able to hit the exact target, feeling that the launch would occur "within several weeks" of the date.   

As a result of the launch delay, the current six-man crew will spend more time on the station. Three of the six crew members will return to earth on April 30; they were originally scheduled to depart around March 16. The April 30 departure will leave ISS understaffed for science with a three-person crew for about two weeks. ISS needs six people on board to conduct about 35 hours per week of human-tended experiments.

Further delays in crew rotations due to the trashed Soyuz are rippling throughout the rest of the flights scheduled this year, as the Russians have to move up productions schedules for capsule hardware while ISS managers lengthen crew stays onboard to keep the space station fully staffed as long as possible.