CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A Russian Progress resupply ship was safely re-docked to the International Space Station (ISS) early Tuesday, this time without the high drama that accompanied the maneuver when it was performed with the same spacecraft in November.
The view from a black-and-white camera on the Progress spacecraft shows the docking port on the Zarya module centered on the crosshairs. Image from NASA TV.
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As planned, the seven-and-a-half-ton robot spaceship flew an automated approach to the orbiting outpost until Progress was a close 656 feet (200 meters) from the complex. Then Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko took a firm grip of the controls and with a light touch deftly piloted the ship by remote control until it was successfully berthed to the station.
A black-and-white television image coming from a camera mounted on the Progress vehicle provided Gidzenko and Earth-bound viewers with a clear, front-row seat of the proceedings.
Docking occurred at 6:03 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (11:03 GMT) as the complex orbited 230 miles (370 kilometers) above northwest Mongolia, just south of the Russian border."I can see through the window that the movement is steady and very smooth," cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev radioed flight controllers at the Korolev Mission Control Center near Moscow as the ship approached and then joined to the station. "We have capture and alignment."
"Docking confirmed," reported NASA mission commentator Rob Navias from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the U.S. space agency also has a space station control room to monitor the progress of the flight.
~Moments later a series of mechanical latches closed to lock the two ships together and then during the next couple of hours the station crew -- which includes American astronaut Bill Shepherd -- worked to open the hatches between Progress and the station.
NASA computer art shows how the International Space Station appears in orbit right now with the Progress spacecraft docked underneath to the Zarya module. Image from NASA TV.
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"Good work, guys. Congratulations. It was very precise work," a mission manager told the crew via radio a few minutes after the docking was complete.
Very similar to the cosmonaut-carrying Soyuz spacecraft, the Russian space program has relied on the Progress vehicle to carry food, equipment, fuel and other supplies to its space stations for many years and it is considered a fairly reliable cargo ship.
Normally a Progress is launched on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and then two days later an automatic docking system is used to fly the Progress for a link up with the station.
That was the plan on November 16 when this particular Progress launched from Baikonur on its way to dock with the ISS on November 18. But as the spaceship approached, the automatic system failed, prompting Gidzenko to take manual charge of the wobbling Progress.
Such manual dockings are not rare, but ever since the 1997 near-disaster at the space station Mir -- in which an out-of-control Progress slammed into the station, puncturing it and almost killing its three occupants -- the Progress dockings have been greeted with increased apprehension.
As a result, tension levels in space and on the ground spiked when the veteran cosmonaut reported having trouble seeing what he was doing and then communication difficulties with mission control complicated the job. But Gidzenko was finally able to steer Progress into its place against a hatch on the Zarya module about 40 minutes later than planned.
Evidence of how dramatic those directly involved with the program viewed the event in November can be gleaned from this comment by Victor Blagov, deputy chief flight director of the Russian Mission Center outside Moscow, who told the crew after the successful docking: "I want to congratulate you on your bravery, your heroism... You guys have used a lot of adrenaline."
~With the launch of shuttle Endeavour on November 30, Progress had to leave to physically make way for the spaceplane, so the robot ship was undocked from the outpost.
But instead of being sent on a suicide plunge into Earth's atmosphere -- the eventual fate of all Progress vehicles, which are not equipped with heat shields -- mission managers ordered the Progress sent into a parking orbit a safe distance away, unsure at that point if they would attempt a re-docking.
As Endeavour's five astronauts spent time at the ISS on their successful mission to install and deploy a new electricity-generating solar wing, engineers troubleshooted the Progress problem and concluded the automatic docking system failure was caused by a computer program error.
Sure they had a solution to the problem, the Russian station managers eventually convinced their international partners it would be safe to allow this Progress vehicle to return to the space station for a second docking, which the laws of orbital mechanics and crew scheduling dictated should happen on the day after Christmas.
Gidzenko reported after the safe docking that the automatic system worked fine with the software patch that had been radioed to the Progress to fix the computer problem.
This Progress will now remain docked to the station until the day after shuttle Atlantis is launched from the Kennedy Space Center carrying the U.S. science laboratory dubbed Destiny. Liftoff is expected during the third week of January, NASA's Rob Navias said.
In the meantime, the three-man-crew -- who have been aboard the station since November 2 -- will continue to fill the Progress with trash and use the remaining fuel onboard the spacecraft to help maneuver the station if needed. The crew also plans to remove the vehicle's automatic docking system so it can be returned to Earth aboard Atlantis for study.
During the coming week they will also begin reviewing plans for activating the Destiny science lab, leading up to a quiet New Year's holiday off during which no work is planned.
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