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The Russian cargo ship Progress 71 approached the International Space Station on November 18, 2018 in this view from a video camera installed on the station. The robotic supply ship delivered 2.8 tons of supplies to the station.
Credit: NASA TV
An unarmed Russian cargo ship was connected to the International Space Station Sunday (18 November) to deliver nearly 3 tons of supplies to the laboratory in orbit.
The supply vessel, Progress 71, docked at the space station at 1428 (EST) (1928 GMT), the two spacecraft having traveled 405 kilometers above Algeria. Progress 71 was launched in orbit on Friday 16 November from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
"A journey into textbooks for Progress," NASA spokesman Rob Navias said in a live commentary. [The Space Station’s Robotic Cargo Ship Fleet in Pictures]
Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev, Flight Engineer Expedition 57 at the station, watched the arrival of Progress 71 carefully, ready to take remote control if necessary. But the freighter worked perfectly, parking at the rear of the station's Zvezda service module, built in Russia.
Progress 71 delivered 5,664 pounds (2,564 kg) of food, fuel and other supplies to the 57th expedition crew of the station. This transport includes: 1,300 kg (2,866 pounds) of dry goods such as foodstuffs and experimental equipment; 1,653 pounds (750 kg) of propellant; 970 pounds (440 kg) of water; 122.2 pounds (55 kg) of oxygen; and 53 pounds (24 kg) of air.
The launch of Progress 71, which began with a Soyouz FG booster, is paving the way for the first crew of a new crew since the collapse of October 11th. Astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. Both men were unscathed and the Russian space agency Roscosmos traced the failure of a defective sensor on one of the rocket boosters.
After the successful launch of Progress 71, Roscosmos officials are now certain that its Soyuz FG boosters are once again ready to carry human crews. The next flight, scheduled for Dec. 3, will carry three new crew members to the station: American Anne McClain, Russian Oleg Kononenko and Canadian David Saint-Jacques. The trio joins three others still on board (the German Alexander Gerst, the American Serena Auńon-Chancellor and Prokopyev).
The docking of Progress 71 arrives one day in front of another cargo ship, an unarmed spacecraft Cygnus, which will arrive at the station early Monday, Nov. 19 to deliver about 3,500 kilograms of supplies. A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket launched the Cygnus early Saturday (Nov. 17) from a platform located at NASA's Wallops flight facility in Wallops Island, Virginia.
You can watch the Cygnus arrive at the live station here, courtesy of NASA TV. The NASA webcast will start at 4:00 am EST (09:00 GMT). Astronauts should capture the Cygnus at 5:20 pm EST (10:20 GMT).
Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow him. @tariqjmalik. follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
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