A robotic Russian spacecraft filled
with supplies for the six crew members on the International Space
Station made an express delivery to the orbiting outpost on Wednesday.
The Progress 56 craft
was launched atop a Russian-built Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:44 p.m. ET (3:44 a.m. local time
Thursday). It hooked up with the space station's Pirs docking
compartment just after 11:30 p.m. ET.
The Progress was loaded with about
5,700 pounds (2,587 kilograms) of food, water, propellant and other
supplies for the station's Expedition 40 crew.
Historically, Progress ships
have taken about two days to arrive at the station. Since 2012,
however, the Russian crafts have been flying to the science laboratory
in six hours or less. Astronauts and cosmonauts have also started taking
these quick, four-orbit flights aboard the Soyuz capsules that deliver
new crew members to the station.
A different Progress
craft, dubbed Progress 55, left the space station on Monday to make room
for the new cargo ship. Progress 55 is now flying a safe distance away
from the orbiting outpost. It will perform a series of engineering tests
before it intentionally burns up over the Pacific Ocean on July 31,
according to NASA.
The space station
currently plays host to a crew of six. NASA astronauts Steve Swanson and
Reid Wiseman, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst and
Russian cosmonauts Max Suraev, Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev
make up the Expedition 40 crew.
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