Russian Cargo Spacecraft Docks with ISS

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, September 01, 2003

Russian Cargo Spacecraft Docks with ISS

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A Russian spacecraft carrying over 2.5 tons of cargoes successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) at 0741 a.m. Moscow time (0341 GMT) on Sunday,officials at the Mission Control outside Moscow said.

The "Progress M-48" cargo spacecraft "docked with the station automatically," said mission chief Vladimir Solovyov.

"There were minor problems with the ground services but were solved very quickly," Interfax quoted the official as saying.

Besides the traditional supplies including drinking water, fueland equipment as well as air and oxygen cylinders, the "Progress M-48" cargo spacecraft, which took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on early Friday morning, also delivered for the first time satellite telephones to the station, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

The decision to equip the ISS with satellite communication facilities was made after the landing capsule, carrying the station's last crew of Russian Nikolai Budarin and two Americans, Kenneth Bowersocks and Donald Pettit, deviated on May 4 almost 500kilometers away from the target area on the ground.

It took the rescuers two hours to find the spacemen, who were unable to contact the search and rescue services by radio.

The current ISS crew of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malchenko and his American fellow-astronaut Edward Lu, who have been working in orbit since April, also received fresh fruit and vegetables, parcels from friends and relatives, financial and economic magazines as well as comedy films and CDs with Russian and American songs and music.

A Progress M-47 undocked the ISS on Thursday, taking away about1,000 kilograms of waste that accumulated aboard the ISS over the past seven months.

The Progress M-48 was the third cargo spacecraft blasting off to the ISS this year. One more cargo spacecraft is to be launched in December.

Following the Columbia disaster in February, Russian spacecraftthat currently carries the task of delivering new missions and cargoes to the ISS, became the only links to the 16-nation orbiting space station.

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