For decades, Russia's manned space flight program was an engineering marvel, a low-tech, no-frills system that reliably and safely ferried scores of astronauts and cosmonauts into orbit.

With the US space shuttle fleet grounded in 2011, Soyuz and Progress vehicles were the workhorses for the International Space Station (ISS), trucking supplies to the station and bringing men and women back to Earth, while also providing booster power to keep it in orbit and oriented.

In recent years, however, Russia's overall space program has taken a series of hits, its reputation battered by corruption scandals, dwindling funding, not-insignificant accidents, and management accused of putting politics above science.

The latest blow? As a Soyuz capsule carrying two Russians and one American blasted off from the storied Baikonur complex last month, a major component of the launchpad -- called a maintenance or service cabin - failed to move out from under the blast of exhaust from the ascending rocket.

It's not yet clear whether human error or a technical mishap was to blame, but the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said repairs would be needed.

The problem is that this specific site -- Launchpad 31/6 -- is the only one at Baikonur capable of carrying out manned Soyuz launches. Experts say best case scenario is repairs will take a few months; it's also possible it could take years.

"If that thing is destroyed, it's going to take them time to be able to launch rockets again," said Terry Virts, a former NASA astronaut and ISS commander who flew on a Soyuz launched from Baikonur, "and with all of their effort going into their war machine, I'm not sure if they will be able to launch anytime soon."

"Although they are Russians and they tend to make do," he added.

While US private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin can ship people -- including Russian cosmonauts -- -- and small cargos back and forth to the station, they can't handle the Russian-built Progress crafts, which are used to keep it properly oriented.

Other non-Russian vehicles -- Northrop Grumman's Cygnus; the Japanese HTV-X; Boeing's Starliner - could make up some of the difference, said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, in Washington.

"Not likely to be a problem in the short term but could be a problem if there is a long gap in Progress missions," he said. "I've heard a range of estimates for the time to repair the site: ranging from an optimistic six months to a pessimistic two years."