The Progress 80 freighter, a Russian cargo spacecraft arrived early morning today at the International Space Station delivering almost three tons of equipment and supplies to the orbiting lab.
According to a Space.com report, Progress 80 hunted the orbiting lab for a little over two days. The said Russian freighter docked with the Poisk compartment station of the station at 2:30 am EST, concluding an approximately two-date orbital chase.
Progress 80 propelled on top of a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan late Monday evening and orbited Earth about 34 times before it caught up with the space station about 434 kilometers above the South Pacific.
During a webcast of the arrival of Progress 80, NASA officials said the Russian freighter was packed with 2,570 kilograms of cargo.
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A Russian cargo Progress spacecraft blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early on January 28, 2011. The spacecraft is to deliver to the ISS more than 2.6 tons of various cargoes, including parcels and gifts from families of the station crew.
Delivering to ISS and Its Rotating Astronauts
This Russian spacecraft was able to deliver more than 940 pounds of propellant, over 80 pounds of nitrogen, 926 pounds of water, and more than 3,700 pounds of spare parts, as well as other supplies.
Progress 80 is among the handful of robotic resupply aircraft that is presently delivering water, fuel, food, and scientific hardware to the ISS and its rotating astronauts.
The other is the Cygnus vehicle of Northop Grumman will take off on its own mission on February 19, and the Dragon capsule of SpaceX.
SpaceX's Dragon is reusable. Progress and Cygnus, on the other hand, are designed to burn up in the atmosphere of Earth where their orbital work is carried out.
The Dragon spacecraft has the capacity of carrying a maximum of seven passengers to, and from the orbit of the Earth and beyond.
As indicated in the space company's description on its website, it is the only spacecraft presently flying that as earlier mentioned, is capable of returning substantial amounts of cargo to this planet and it is the first private spacecraft to take humans to the ISS.
Shorter Delivery Journey
In a separate Space.com report, it was specified that Roscosmos announced a few days ago that it's planning to shorten the deliveries of Progress 80 to a single-orbit, two-hour journey to the orbiting lab. Should the early testing go as planned, the execution of that ultra-fast route is expected to take place next year.
Beginning 2018, a lot of Progress vehicles were able to get to the station in only two orbits or, or equivalent to three hours.
However, the timing of launches and arrivals on the space station is subject to several factors like the activities of other spacecraft or rockets docked to the space station.
Essentially, Progress is the main spacecraft by which Russia is delivering supplies to its crews on the ISS, succeeding the work of past Progress variants that supplied previous stations like Salyut 6 and Mir. It was in the 1970s when Progress was first developed under the now-defunct Soviet Union.
Report about the recent Progress 80 arrival on the ISS is shown on NASA's YouTube video below:
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