Published time: July 03, 2015
Screenshot from RT video
A Russian Soyuz rocket has successfully lifted the 60th
Progress transport cargo spacecraft into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan, launching it on a mission to resupply the International Space
Station.
The Progress M-27M is due to deliver more than 3 tons of
food, fuel and supplies to the Expedition-44 crew.
Although the three men on board the ISS – Gennady Padalka,
Mikhail Korniyenko and Scott Kelly – have enough supplies to last them until
autumn, the arrival of the cargo ship is crucial.
Two previous missions to deliver supplies to ISS were
unsuccessful, resulting in the loss of the ships and their cargo.
At the end of June, an unmanned Falcon 9 rocket carrying
more than two tons of supplies exploded shortly after lifting off from Cape
Canaveral.
In April, the Russian Progress vessel entered the ‘wrong’
orbit and ended up in an uncontrolled spin around the earth, making docking at
the International Space Station (ISS) ‘impossible’.
This time the cargo ship was taken into space by a different
type of booster – the Soyuz U.
It will take a longer route than usual and reach ISS on July
5.
It is carrying 1,940 pounds of propellant, 106 pounds of
oxygen, 926 pounds of water and 3,133 pounds of crew supplies and research
equipment.
//--------------------------////
Russian cargo ship lifts off to International Space Station,
vital success after 2 American and 1 Russian failures
In this image taken from video, a Soyuz-U rocket blasts off
at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Friday, July 3, 2015.
The unmanned cargo ship is heading to the International Space Station, whose
crew is anxiously awaiting it after the successive failures of two previous
supply missions. (NASA TV via AP)
Associated Press July 3, 2015 | 2:31 a.m. EDT + More
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press
MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian booster rocket on Friday
successfully launched an unmanned cargo ship to the International Space
Station, whose crew is anxiously awaiting it after the successive failures of
two previous supply missions.
A Soyuz-U rocket blasted off flawlessly from Russia-leased
Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan, placing the Progress M-28M ship into a
designated orbit, safely en route to the station. On Sunday, it's set to dock
at the station currently manned by Russians Gennady Padalka and Mikhail
Kornienko and NASA's Scott Kelly.
The ship is carrying 2.4 metric tons of fuel, oxygen, water,
food and other supplies for the crew, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.
The previous Progress launch in April ended in failure, and
on Sunday a U.S. supply mission failed too when SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket broke
apart shortly after liftoff. The mishaps were preceded by last October's launch
pad failure of Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket, also carrying station cargo
for NASA.
Despite the failures, NASA said the station is well-stocked,
with enough supplies for the crew to last at least until October.
However, the trouble-free launch Friday was essential for
the station program, which has exclusively relied on Russian spacecraft for
ferrying crews after the grounding of the U.S. shuttle fleet.
SpaceX still hopes to meet the target of launching
astronauts from U.S. soil again aboard the Falcon-Dragon combination in
December 2017, which would allow NASA to stop buying seats from Russia to get
astronauts to the space lab.
The Soyuz rocket is used to propel both Soyuz manned
spacecraft and Progress cargo ships to orbit, so the launch of the station's
next crew of three has been pushed back from late May to late July as space
officials have looked into the reason for the rocket failure in April.
Russian space officials eventually have traced the failure
to a leak from fuel and oxidizer tanks in the booster's third stage, which they
said was caused by a yet unspecified flaw in the interface between the cargo
ship and the latest Soyuz modification, called Soyuz 2.
The Soyuz-U rocket used Friday is an older sub-type of the
rocket, which has been the workhorse of Soviet and Russian space programs for
nearly half-a-century. Last month, the Interfax news agency reported that the
Russian space agency will only be using that Soyuz modification until experts
fully understand the reason behind April's failure and fix the flaw.
The station program has been one of a few sectors where ties
haven't been hurt by a bruising Russia-West showdown over the crisis in
Ukraine.
///------------------///
Russian rocket takes off to resupply ISS after 2 American and 1 Russian missions
failed
By Ben
Brumfield and Amanda
Barnett, CNN
Updated 7:34 AM ET, Fri July 3, 2015
Story highlights
The ProgressM-28M lifted off smoothly, with the Soyuz-U
capsule atop it
The Soyuz-U is carrying more than 5,200 pounds of supplies
to the ISS
(CNN)Resupply missions to the International Space Station
rarely fail -- let alone twice in row, like the last two did.
That may make the arrival of the Russian cargo spacecraft
that launched Friday all the more welcome -- even if the ISS does keep a large
backlog of supplies on board.
The crewless ProgressM-28M lifted from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan just before 8:00 a.m. local time (12:00 a.m. ET / 5:00
a.m. GMT) and cut a clean path through a clear blue sky en route to a low-Earth
orbit.
Minutes later, the Soyuz-U cargo vehicle successfully
separated from the rest of the rocket, according to the Russian Federal Space
Agency, also called Roscosmos.
And it was on course to deliver 5,249 pounds (2,381
kilograms) of supplies to the ISS on Sunday. They include food, water, oxygen,
fuel and scientific apparatuses.
Mission fails
Missions like this are fairly routine, but three spacecraft
bound for the ISS with tons of supplies have been lost since last October --
including the two most recent.
This past Sunday, one American rocket blew to pieces shortly
after liftoff.
The SpaceX Falcon9 rocket was boosting a Dragon supply
capsule stocked with a spacesuit, water filtration equipment, food, water, and
experiments submitted by students. It also carried a docking adapter which was
to allow people to arrive aboard America's first crewed spacecraft since the
space shuttle.
All was lost.
On April 28, the last Russian rocket that launched on a
resupply mission went out of control and ended up in an orbit
incompatible with that of the ISS. It eventually burned up in Earth's
atmosphere along with clothing, spacewalk hardware, propellant, oxygen, water,
spare parts, supplies and experiments.
And in October 2014, a rocket on a resupply mission had to be
detonated, when its launch went awry right after liftoff. The Antares, made
by the Orbital Space Sciences Corporation, was carrying provisions, experiments
and equipment.
"We've always assumed we would lose a vehicle every so
often," said Michael Suffredini, manager of the International Space
Station Program for NASA. "Having three this close together is not what
we'd hoped for."
But the ISS was prepared. Even after the SpaceX Falcon9
exploded on Sunday, it had enough supplies to last the crew until October, at
least.
Life on the ISS
The station orbits about 248 miles (400 kilometers) above
Earth. It circles the planet every 90 minutes.
NASA says more than 200 people from 15 countries have
visited it since November 2000.
The ISS measures 357 feet end-to-end and has more space than
a six-bedroom house.
What do the astronauts do up there? Mostly, they conduct
experiments. But they also exercise to offset the effects of near-zero gravity.
If you want to see it with your own eyes, NASA can tell you
when it will be flying
right over your hometown. It looks like a high-flying airplane tracing a
beeline across the sky.