Fresh Cargo Ship Ready to Launch Toward ISS

CAPE CANAVERAL - A Russian space freighter filled with food, water and other crucial cargo is slated to be launched from central Asia late tonight on a two-day trip to the International Space Station.

Mounted atop a Russian government Soyuz rocket, the Progress cargo carrier is scheduled to blast off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:09 p.m. Eastern time.

The craft will be the 18th Progress to fly to the station and the ninth since the 2003 Columbia accident grounded NASA's shuttle fleet, cutting off a key supply line to the outpost.

While food, water and oxygen reserves have been slim in recent months, NASA officials say Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and U.S. astronaut John Phillips now have plenty of supplies.

"We actually have adequate resources onboard the station," said Kirk Shireman, a NASA station project manager at Johnson Space Center in Houston. "And I think we've all been working very hard these last two-and-a-half years to support the ISS with just the resources onboard and the Progress vehicles."

Station crews have relied on supplies shipped aboard Progress vehicles or NASA shuttles, the latter of which carry much more cargo than the automated Russian space freighters.

Late last December, a food shortage would have forced a crew to evacuate had a Progress failed to arrive with a four-month supply of rations. More recently, the failure of the station's primary oxygen generator has forced Krikalev and Phillips to rely on dwindling reserves of breathing air.

The reserves include a store of solid fuel oxygen generators similar to devices that provide drop-down emergency air supplies on commercial airliners. About 25 percent of those generators, however, have failed in recent weeks.

Shireman said air reserves today are projected to last until Oct. 27. Extra reserves being brought up aboard the Progress will provide a supply that would last through January, JSC spokesman Rob Navias said.

The Progress is scheduled to dock at the station at 8:44 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, bringing with it a total of 4,662 pounds of food, water, oxygen, fuel, spare parts and other cargo. Another Progress is scheduled for launch on Aug. 25.

Krikalev and Phillips are in the midst of a six-month tour of duty on the station. The two are scheduled to return to Earth Oct. 7, but their stay might be extended about a month to open up a September launch window for a planned shuttle flight to the outpost.

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