An unmanned
cargo ship carrying fresh supplies and the likeness of a Russian space
legend rocketed spaceward late Wednesday to restock the International Space
Station.
The Russian-built
Progress 24 cargo ship began the two-day trip to the ISS at 9:12 p.m. EST (0212
Jan. 18 GMT) with a successful launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, NASA officials said in a statement.
The supply
ship is carrying more than 2.5 tons of cargo to the station's three-astronaut
Expedition 14 crew. Its flight follows the planned destruction of an older Russian spacecraft, Progress 22, that was jettisoned
from the orbital laboratory on Tuesday [image].
Expedition
14 commander Michael
Lopez-Alegria and flight engineers Mikhail
Tyurin and Sunita
Williams expect Progress 24 to dock at the space station's Russian-built
Pirs docking compartment on Friday at 10:03 p.m. EST (0303 Jan. 20 GMT). NASA
will broadcast the supply ship's automated arrival live via NASA TV.
NASA
spokesperson Lynette Madison told SPACE.com before today's launch that
the Progress 24 spacecraft included some new spacewalk supplies tucked amid the
3,285 pounds (1,490 kilograms) of dry cargo packed in its hold [image].
The cargo ship is also hauling 110 pounds of oxygen and 1,720 pounds (780
kilograms) of propellant to the ISS, as well as new, Japanese experiment
hardware to aid a study in protein crystallization, Russia's Interfax News
Agency has reported.
A portrait
of Sergei
Korolev -- who served as chief rocket designer for the former Soviet Union
and led the nation's efforts to launch the first artificial satellite (Sputnik) and the
first human (Yuri
Gagarin) into orbit, also rode into space during Progress 24's launch [image].
Engineers affixed
the image to the exterior of the spacecraft's Russian-built Soyuz rocket fairing
to honor the 100th
anniversary of the birth of Korolev, who died of a heart attack in 1966 at
the age of 59.
Progress 24
will join an earlier unmanned cargo ship -- Progress
23 -- at the ISS. That older supply ship arrived
last fall and remains docked at the aft end of the station's Zvezda service
module.
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