Russian craft delivers long-awaited cargo to space station

“It just feels like Christmas in July”, a Russian cosmonaut radioed from the ISS, according to a translator. An October 2014 resupply mission failed shortly after liftoff.

A Russian Progress supply flight failed in April, and SpaceX’s Dragon broke up on launch in June.

The station, a joint project involving 15 nations, now has a four-month supply of food and water, NASA said. NASA intends to begin launching astronauts to the station by late 2017 using Boeing and SpaceX contracted launch services – if the initiative is sufficiently funded.

The Cygnus – at no fault for the failure – was carrying 2,215 kilograms (4,883 lb) of cargo, which included 727 kilograms (1600 lb) of scientific equipment and 748 kilograms (1650 lb) of food and supplies for the crew. “We’re as confident as we can be in any rocket launch”. The Antares, made by the Orbital Space Sciences Corporation, was carrying provisions, experiments and equipment.

These three failures occurred in the last eight months for the space station suppliers. And it appeared to go off without a hitch as the booster arced away to the east directly into the plane of the space station’s orbit. “They’ve done a tremendous job of balancing all the consumables on orbit”.

“We’re in good shape from a food standpoint, from a water standpoint”.

However, he said, the crew will need to watch water levels.

U.S. space agency NASA has been quick to issue reassurances the ISS is well-stocked with enough supplies to last the crew until October.

Commander Padalka is scheduled to return to Earth in November while Kornienko and Kelly are part of a year-long mission and will not go home until next March.

The Soyuz-U rocket used Friday is an older sub-type of the rocket, which has been the workhorse of Soviet and Russian space programs for nearly half-a-century.

The station orbits about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth. It circles the planet every 90 minutes. This would allow Nasa to stop buying seats from Russian Federation to get astronauts to the space lab. It measures 357 feet and is larger than a six-bedroom house.

The Progress M-28M spacecraft docked at 7.11 UTC (3:11 a.m. EDT) with the Pirs Docking Compartment.