Russian craft delivers cargo to International Space Station

The station orbits about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth. Two sets of replacements were lost when the American rockets blew up. Left in low orbit, the Progress cargo spaceship fell to Earth over the Pacific on May 8.

Another misfortunate instance happened in April this year where the last Progress mission was unable contact ground control and spun uncontrollably before reaching the ISS. In October of previous year, the USA Cygnus resupply carrier exploded as well after lift off.

The success of the latest launch is essential for the station programme, which has relied on Russian spacecraft for ferrying crews after the grounding of the United States shuttle fleet.

While such missions are usually routine, past spacecraft resupply attempts have failed, making this one especially crucial. SpaceX flights are postponed pending the results of an investigation into its latest launch.

This successful launch was made with an older Soyuz-U launcher, which has a different propellant tank on the third stage and was used to launch the cargo ship into orbit. It was then installed on the launch pad. The robotic freighter was launched Friday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Photo by Roscosmos. The Soyuz rocket engines.

Progress is composed of three components: the Cargo Module, Refueling Module, and Instrument-Service Module. After the module is unloaded, trash, unwanted equipment, and wastewater can be loaded into the Progress for disposal when the spacecraft leaves the Station.

A Russian cargo ship arrived safely at the worldwide Space Station early Sunday, easing concerns about a potential supply shortage after consecutive mission failures. Crew members were already taking precautions before the Russian ISS rocket landed, conserving some of their food supplies. But if anything goes wrong, Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Korniyenko will dock it manually.

The crew focused on science this week. Another three astronauts are scheduled to join the crew at the worldwide Space Station at the end of July. Unmanned cargo ship is urgently needed at the ISS. Assuming the Progress M-28M docks as expected Sunday, it will extend the outpost’s consumables by a month to November.

The ISS Progress 60 resupply ship launches on time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.