An unmanned
Russian cargo ship docked safe and sound, though a few days late, at the
International Space Station on Wednesday after a hurricane on Earth prevented
its orbital arrival last week.
The Russian
space freighter Progress 30 arrived at a docking port on the aft end of the
station's Zvezda service module at 2:43 p.m. EDT (1843 GMT) today in a rare
days-late delivery. The automated cargo ship was initially scheduled to arrive
last Friday, but was delayed when Hurricane Ike forced NASA to evacuate its
Mission Control center in Houston before the storm hit last week.
"We know
that everything went well and they docked on time today," said Mike Curie, a
NASA spokesperson at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Progress 30
launched
Sept. 10 to haul more than 2.5 tons of fresh supplies to the space station's
three-man crew, including about 2,866 pounds (1,300 kg) of fresh food,
clothing, equipment and other dry cargo. The space tug also carried about 1,918
pounds of propellant for the space station's thrusters, 110 pounds (50 kg) of
oxygen and 463 pounds (210 kg) of water.
Russia's Interfax
News Agency reported that the cargo ship also carried a new Russian-built
Orlan spacesuit.
Aboard the
orbiting lab, Expedition 18 commander Sergei Volkov, flight engineer Oleg
Kononenko — both Russian cosmonauts — and NASA flight engineer Gregory
Chamitoff were expected to open hatches between the space station and Progress
30 later today, Interfax reported.
While
Russian flight controllers watched over Progress 30's automated arrival from
their Mission Control center outside Moscow, NASA mission managers were doing
the same at a backup center at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Ala., Curie said.
NASA closed
down its primary space station hub at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on
Sept. 11 to allow personnel to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Ike. The evacuation came
before NASA flight controllers had turned the space station's U.S.-built solar
arrays edge on to the incoming cargo ship to prevent them from being damaged by
the spacecraft's thruster firings.
Backup station
control centers were set up at a hotel near Austin, Texas, and the Marshall Space
Flight Center. The Johnson Space Center suffered minor damage, including
roof damage to the building housing Mission Control, during the hurricane,
NASA officials have said.
Curie told SPACE.com
that NASA space station operations are currently being coordinated out of the
Marshall Space Flight Center, with the primary Mission Control Center in
Houston on track to be reactivated on Friday. The Johnson Space Center in its
entirety is expected to reopen on Monday, he added.
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