CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - An unmanned Russian cargo ship left a berth at the International Space
Station (ISS) to destroy itself late Monday, clearing a docking port for three
spaceflyers now bound for the orbital laboratory.
Filled with
trash and other unneeded equipment, the Progress 21 supply ship slipped away
from its aft docking port of the space station's Zvezda service module at about
8:30 p.m. EDT (0030 Sept. 19 GMT) while the outpost's three-astronaut crew Expedition
13 crew slumbered - an ISS first - and fired its thrusters at the behest of
Russia's Mission Control.
Progress 21
and the ISS were flying more than 200 miles (321 kilometers) above Eastern Asia when the
two spacecraft parted ways, NASA commentator Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters said.
The space
station's Expedition 13 crew of Pavel
Vinogradov, Jeffrey
Williams and Thomas
Reiter were taking their well-earned night's rest as Progress departed
after a busy day highlighted by a mild toxic
spill, a smoke-like odor and the station's second-ever official spacecraft
emergency.
Progress 21's
orbital departure clears the station's Zvezda docking port for the Wednesday
arrival of a new Soyuz
TMA-9 spacecraft carrying two new ISS astronauts and the world's first
female space tourist.
Aboard the
Soyuz, which launched
earlier today at 12:09 a.m. EDT (0409 GMT) are ISS Expedition
14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin, who
will relieve Vinogradov and Williams. Riding along with the Expedition 14 crew
is U.S.
entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari, a paying ISS visitor whose trip results from
a deal with Russia's Federal Space Agency and the Virginia-based firm Space
Adventures.
Ansari and
the Expedition 14 crew are expected to dock at the ISS at about 1:24 a.m. EDT
(0524 GMT) Wednesday.
Progress 21
launched
toward the ISS laden with fresh food, supplies and equipment on April 24 and arrived
at the station two days later. Its undocking marks the second spacecraft
departure in as many days at the ISS.
NASA's space shuttle Atlantis and its
six-astronaut STS-115 crew left the ISS
at about 8:50 a.m. EDT (1250 GMT) Sunday after successfully delivering a $372
million set of new trusses and solar
arrays to the station to resume
construction of the unfinished orbital laboratory.
Atlantis'
STS-115 astronauts are now slated to return to Earth at 5:59 a.m. EDT (0959
GMT) Wednesday, less than five hours after the Ansari and the Expedition 14
expect to arrive at the ISS.
Cloutier-Lemasters
said the expendable Progress 21 vehicle is expected to reenter the Earth's
atmosphere at about 12:02 a.m. EDT on Tuesday on a course to burn up over the Pacific Ocean.
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