Christmas
came a day late for astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS)
with the successful Wednesday arrival of a Russian cargo ship bearing gifts and
fresh supplies.
The unmanned
Progress 27 space freighter arrived at the station's Russian-built Pirs docking
compartment after a three-day chase to catch up to the high-flying orbital
laboratory.
"Everything
is nominal," said veteran cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, an Expedition 16 flight
engineer aboard the ISS, as the cargo ship neared the outpost. "Okay, we feel
the contact."
Malenchenko
stood ready to take remote control of Progress 27 should its automated systems
fail during today's docking. But the cargo ship smoothly moored itself to its
Pirs port at 3:14 a.m. EST (0814 GMT) as both spacecraft flew about 200 miles
(321 kilometers) above southern Europe.
Tucked
aboard the Progress 27 are about 2.5 tons of propellant, oxygen, fresh fruit,
equipment and other vital supplies for the station's three-astronaut crew. Included
in that cargo are Christmas presents for Expedition
16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani, as well as birthday
gifts for Malenchenko, who turned 46 on Saturday.
"These include selected concerts of Vladimir Vinokur, video congratulations from home and from his relatives and friends," Russia's Interfax News Agency quoted Federal Space Agency as saying. Copies of Malenchenko's favorite films and television programs were also included, Interfax reported.
The
astronauts are expected to open the hatches between the ISS and Progress 27 at
about 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT).
Progress 27
launched
early Sunday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with 2,921 pounds
(1,325 kilograms) of dry cargo stored aboard. About 110 pounds (50 kilograms)
of oxygen and 1,918 pounds (870 kilograms) of rocket propellant were also
packed inside the cargo ship, NASA said.
Whitson has
said the cargo ship is also delivering fresh tomatoes and onions, fixings will lend
themselves to a special dinner of "space hamburgers" once she and her crewmates
begin unloading Progress 27.
"Our
standard menu no longer has re-hydratable hamburger patties in it, so I had
requested, in advance, to have patties and dinner rolls in my preference foods,"
Whitson wrote in a recent Expedition 16 journal entry.
Whitson
dreamed up her personal version of orbital hamburgers during her Expedition 5
mission to the ISS in 2002. An assortment of handy, and spicy, sauces to hold
the concoction together was a must when she recreated them last month for her
Expedition 16 crewmates.
"Space
hamburgers went over pretty well, because they were different than the standard
stuff," Whitson wrote. "But there is some assembly required...using the [sauces] of
choice to hold them together!"
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