Astronauts
aboard the International Space Station (ISS) welcomed the arrival of a new
Russian cargo ship filled with fresh food, water and other vital supplies Friday
after a flawless orbital rendezvous.
The unmanned
space freighter Progress 29 successfully docked with the station at 5:39 p.m.
EDT (2139 GMT) as both spacecraft flew 215 miles (346 km) above the Atlantic
Ocean, just off the coast of Brazil.
"Okay,
guys! Congratulations with the successful docking!" Russia's Mission Control
radioed the station's three-man crew.
Loaded with
some 2.3 tons of cargo, the automated Progress 29 supply ship launched toward
the station Wednesday atop a Russian-built Soyuz rocket, lifting off from the
central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. After a two-day
trek, the spacecraft – also known by its Russian designation M-64 – arrived at
an open berth on the station's Earth-facing Zarya control module.
"Everything's
nominal," Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, commander of the station's
Expedition 17 crew, told Mission Control as the freighter neared its orbital
dock.
Volkov and
fellow cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, an Expedition 17 flight engineer, watched over
the arrival of Progress 29 from inside the station, where they were poised to
take remote control of the cargo ship if its automated
docking systems failed. But the space freighter flew smooth and true.
Volkov,
Kononenko and flight engineer Garrett Reisman of NASA are expected to open the
hatches separating the station and its new cargo ship at about 7:30 p.m. EDT
(2330 GMT) tonight. They will begin unloading spacecraft's 4,657 pounds (2,112
kg) of supplies on Saturday, NASA officials said.
Packed
aboard Progress 29 are about 770 pounds (350 kg) of rocket propellant, over 100
pounds (45 kg) of oxygen and air, and 925 pounds (420 kg) of water. The freighter
is carrying about 2,850 pounds (1,292 kg) of dry cargo, which includes 568
pounds (258 kg) of food, 277 pounds (126 kg) of medicine and 282 pounds (128
kg) of hygiene items, according to Russia's Federal Space Agency and wire
reports.
A batch of
90 snails also launched
to station aboard Progress 29 as part of an experiment that studies the
effects of weightlessness on living organisms, Russia's Interfax News Agency
has reported.
Russia's
unmanned Progress cargo ships are similar in appearance to the country's
three-segment Soyuz spacecraft that routinely ferry astronauts to and from the
space station.
Progress 29
was initially slated to dock at a berth on the station's Russian-built Pirs
docking compartment, but that perch is currently occupied by the Soyuz TMA-12
spacecraft that ferried Volkov and Kononenko to the station last month.
The
Expedition 17 crew was originally slated to move the Soyuz to the Zarya docking
port, clearing the Pirs berth for Progress 29, in early May. But Russian and
NASA flight controllers canceled that short flight due to an ongoing
investigation into a previous Soyuz spacecraft's off-target
landing last month.
advertisement
