Progress Launches to Space Station

(NASA) – An unpiloted Progress cargo carrier launched on time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 7:38 a.m. EST Wednesday with almost 2.7 tons of fuel, air, water, propellant and other supplies and equipment aboard.

Nine minutes later, the Progress reached orbit and deployed its solar arrays. One of several antennas associated with the Kurs automated rendezvous system apparently did not deploy. The antenna in question is one of two so-called “narrow field proximity antennas” used for range and range rate updates to the Progress computers through the final stage of its approach for docking at the Pirs docking compartment.

Expedition 18 Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov was told by Russian flight controllers Wednesday that he would likely be asked to take over manual control of the docking of the Progress 31 cargo ship through the TORU telerobotically controlled rendezvous system in the Zvezda Service Module when the Progress closes to within 20 meters of the Pirs docking compartment. The Kurs automated system would bring the Progress to within 20 meters before a command would be sent by Lonchakov to transition to TORU.

The station’s 31st Progress unpiloted spacecraft brings to the orbiting laboratory more than 1,800 pounds of propellant, more than 100 pounds of oxygen and air, more than 450 pounds of water and nearly 3,000 pounds of dry cargo. Total cargo weight is 5,342 pounds.

P31 replaces the trash-filled P30 which undocked from the aft port of the Zvezda service module Nov. 14 and will deorbit Dec. 7 for destruction in the Earth’s atmosphere after geophysical experiments.

P31 is scheduled to dock to the station Nov. 30, after two extra days in orbit for testing. P31 has avionics upgrades, including a new main computer, accelerometers, telemetry downlink system, additional interfaces to the docking system and display overlays.

Once the cargo is unloaded, P31 will be filled with trash and station discards. It will be undocked from the station and before deorbit, it may freefly to test new Soyuz navigation software. Then, like its predecessors, it will be commanded to re-enter and burn in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Progress is similar in appearance and some design elements to the Soyuz spacecraft, which brings crew members to the station, serves as a lifeboat while they are there and returns them to Earth. The aft module, the instrumentation and propulsion module, is nearly identical.

But the second of the three Progress sections is a refueling module, and the third, uppermost as the Progress sits on the launch pad, is a cargo module. On the Soyuz, the descent module, where the crew is seated on launch and which returns them to Earth, is the middle module and the third is called the orbital module.

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