Cargo Ship Launches to the Station
Although Atlantis is getting ready for its trip back to the International Space Station, it won’t be the only visitor. An unmanned Progress cargo ship blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today, bringing fresh supplies to the International Space Station. The Americans call it Progress 28, while the Russians have designated it M-63.
Let’s pick a designation and call it Progress M-63. The spacecraft lifted off at 4:03 p.m. local time, carrying a load of oxygen, water and food for the crew: US astronauts Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani and Russian cosmonaut Yiri Malenchenko. It’s also carrying scientific equipment and experiments.
To make room for the inbound cargo ship, the previous Progress M-62 undocked from the station on Monday. It had been docked to the station since December 26, 2007. It will now spend the next few weeks performing a series of autonomous tests.
And in late February, another cargo ship, M-60 will be discarded into the Pacific Ocean, 3,000 km from New Zealand.
Original Source: NASA News Release
Recent Posts
The Great Red Spot Probably Formed in the Early 1800s
Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) is one of the Solar System's defining features. It's a…
A New Way to Prove if Primordial Black Holes Contribute to Dark Matter
The early Universe was a strange place. Early in its history—in the first quintillionth of…
Baby Stars are Swarming Around the Galactic Center
The vicinity of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way's…
Rotation Curves of Galaxies Stay Flat Indefinitely
In his classic book On the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the philosopher Thomas Kuhn posited…
Almost a Third of Early Galaxies Were Already Spirals
In the years before the JWST's launch, astronomers' efforts to understand the early Universe were…
Which Stars are Lethal to their Planets?
Many years ago, there was a viral YouTube video called "History of the entire world,…