A snow-laden branch shows the season at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur
Cosmodrome, where a Russian Soyuz rocket stands poised to launch spaceward
A
snow-laden branch shows the season at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, where a
Russian Soyuz rocket stands poised to launch spaceward.
Set to
launch Wednesday night at 9:12 p.m. EST (0212 Jan. 18 GMT), the Soyuz booster
is set to loft the Russian-built Progress 24 cargo ship on a two-day trek
towards the International
Space Station (ISS).
Riding
aboard the Progress 24 space freighter will be more than 1,720 pounds of
propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen and about 3,285 pounds of dry cargo – which
includes new equipment, experiments and spare parts. The fresh supplies are
expected to arrive at the space station’s Russian-built Pirs docking
compartment Friday at 10:03 p.m. EST (0303 Jan. 20 GMT) .
To prepare
for Progress 24’s ISS arrival, the station’s Expedition
14 crew and their flight controllers on Earth will cast off an older cargo
ship – Progress
22 – from its berth at the Pirs compartment at about 6:29 p.m. EST today (2329
GMT).
Another
cargo tug – the Progress
23 spacecraft – remains docked at the aft end of the space station’s
Russian-built Zvezda service module.
-- SPACE.com Staff
Credit: RSC Energia.
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