Russian cargo ship flying to space station ahead of U.S. STS-122 mission

William Atkins
Wednesday, 06 February 2008 18:21

Science - Space

On Monday, February 5, 2008, the unmanned Russian Progress M-63 lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan) at 1303 GMT. It is delivering supplies and equipment to the International Space Station crew ahead of the American STS-122 mission.     

The cargo ship is carrying over 2.75 tons of water, oxygen, fruit, vegetables, various other foods, scientific equipment, and experiments for the International Space Station Expedition 16 crew consisting of U.S. astronauts Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko.

The spacecraft is currently in orbit about the Earth and it making slight automatic alterations to its orbit in order to dock with the space station on Thursday, February 7, 2008. Its mission designation is ISS 28P (serial number 363).

The Progress-62 cargo ship was undocked and de-orbited on Sunday, February 4, 2008, in preparation for the arrival of its sister ship Progress-63.

The Progress is a series of unmanned expendable spacecraft that currently serves to resupply the ISS, although its original purpose was to resupply Russian space stations. Progress-63 was launched with a Soyuz-U launch vehicle.

The Progress M-63 mission is the thirty-first visit to the International Space Station by an unmanned space vehicle, and the twenty-eighth mission of Progress spacecraft since the beginning of the ISS program. It will be docked to the ISS for about six months before it will be undocked full of waste and de-orbited so that it disintegrates as it descends to Earth.

The cargo ship will arrive at the space station on the day that the United States STS-122 mission is expected to lift off from its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift off at 4:03 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on February 7 with the European Space Agency’s Columbus scientific laboratory in his cargo bay.

All the technical problems to Atlantis have been fixed (the liquid hydrogen fuel sensors and the bent Freon® radiator hose in the cargo bay). However, weather now seems to be the culprit that may delay the launch on Thursday. The weather forecast calls for a 60% chance of rain and thundershowers for the afternoon launch, with a temperature of about 75 degrees Fahrenheit.