SPACE.com -- Progress Freighter on its Way to the Space Station

The Progress 8 cargo freighter is prepared for launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Columbia Investigation Begins in Earnest

Space Station Crew Can Hold Out Until June if Needed

Russian Soyuz Rocket Lofts Fresh Progress Freighter into Orbit


	Progress Freighter on its Way to the Space Station By Jim Banke Senior Producer, Cape Canaveral Bureau posted: 09:15 am ET 02 February 2003

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A critical load of fresh supplies and fuel is on its way to the International Space Station.

The cargo is loaded inside a Russian unmanned Progress freighter, which was launched atop a Soyuz booster on Sunday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Liftoff came right on time at 7:59 a.m. EST (1259 GMT) and the robot ship reached orbit nine minutes later, according to a NASA statement.

Progress 10, as NASA identifies it, is scheduled to dock with the orbiting outpost at 9:55 a.m. EST (1455 GMT) Monday.

The Expedition Six crew of Ken Bowersox, Don Pettit and Nikolai Budarin are scheduled to open the hatches and begin unpacking the freighter on Tuesday.

The material will help them remain comfortable in orbit until at least the June timeframe if needed, officials said Saturday following the loss of shuttle Columbia.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, speaking to a variety of news media on NASA TV Sunday morning, said the station crew remains uppermost on the minds of space agency officials.

"We're focused on making sure they are fully supported, and as early as we can possibly get back there to rotate that crew and bring them back home and send a new crew, that's exactly what we're going to do," O'Keefe said.

A planned March 1 mission to the space station to swap out the station crews and bring additional supplies to the outpost is indefinitely postponed while NASA continues its investigation into the shuttle disaster.

"All three of them are apprised of the facts of what's going on. They've been given all the information and they're prepared to do what's necessary to stiff this out throughout the course of the investigation," O'Keefe said.

The station crew is by no means stranded in space. A three-person Soyuz lifeboat remains attached to the space station at all times.

In a worst case scenario the three expedition crew members could essentially put the station on autopilot and then abandon ship to return to Earth. Another option could see a new expedition crew launched atop a fresh Soyuz spacecraft to accomplish the crew swap out.

NASA officials say they will consider every option as the course of the Columbia investigation unfolds, but there's no hurry to commit to any one option in terms of the station.

"We've got time," O'Keefe said. "We've got an opportunity I think to sustain them with what they need, but we're always focused on making sure that we recognize that people are depending on us."