Progress cargo ship glides to smooth space station docking
Capping a busy week in space, a Russian Progress cargo ship equipped with upgraded avionics and navigation gear docked at the International Space Station early Wednesday, completing a two-day rendezvous.
The third stage of the Soyuz rocket that launched the spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Monday re-entered the atmosphere and burned up overnight Tuesday, creating a spectacular fireball visible across the western United States.
The Progress MS/62P spacecraft, loaded with 5,753 pounds of propellant, supplies, spare parts and other equipment, glided to a picture-perfect docking at the space station's Russian Pirs module at 5:27 a.m. EST (GMT-5).
The spacecraft was launched just a few hours before station commander Scott Kelly and flight engineer Tim Kopra staged a three-hour 16-minute spacewalk Monday to free up a jammed robot arm transporter that had to be locked down at an anchor point before the Progress could dock.
The spacewalk went smoothly and today's docking was uneventful.
The Progress MS/62P cargo ship is the first in a new series of spacecraft featuring an upgraded command and telemetry system, new digital video gear for proximity operations and additional redundancy in a manual control backup system. Other MS-series upgraded were tested on earlier flights.
Assuming a second Progress MS flight goes well at the end of March, the Russians will transition to MS-series Soyuz crew ferry spacecraft starting in June.
The Progress MS/62P spacecraft that docked Wednesday is the tenth space station supply ship launched this year. The spacecraft is packed with 1,918 pounds of propellant, 105 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 2,804 pounds of equipment, crew supplies and spare parts.
All together, the eight supply ships that reached the station in 2015 -- two spacecraft were lost in launch failures -- delivered some 40 tons of propellant, crew supplies and equipment.