Russian craft docks with space station
A Russian cargo ship packed with supplies and equipment docked successfully with the international space station today, bringing food, water, fuel and other items to the two-man Russian-American crew, a space official said.
The Progress M-50 ship docked automatically with the orbiting station on schedule at 9.01am Moscow time (5.01 am), said Irina Manshilina, a spokeswoman at Russian mission control outside Moscow.
The Progress had lifted off from Russia’s Baikonour cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
The trip to the station normally takes two days, but Russian space agency officials had said the cargo ship would take 24 hours longer than usual in an experiment to try to save fuel.
Mission control chief Vladimir Solovyov told state-controlled First Channel television that the ”laconic program of approach to the station” was meant to conserve fuel and carry out an experiment to more accurately measure the weight of the station, which should also held save fuel during future changes in its orientation.
In addition to food, water and fuel for the station, the Progress was also was carrying magazines and DVDs for the crewmen, Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and American astronaut Michael Fincke.
Padalka and Fincke arrived in April for a six-month stint at the station, whose assembly has been on hold since the US space shuttle Columbia disaster in February 2003. NASA officials say they hope to resume shuttle flights next spring.
Russia and the United States agreed to split the costs of sending men and material to the space station, but only Russian spacecraft have been used since the shuttle disaster. The Progress is the third Russian supply ship sent this year.
