MOSCOW, July 5 /TASS/. The Progress M-28M spacecraft with 2.4 tonnes of cargoes onboard is expected to dock with the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday morning, a source at the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) told TASS.
"The docking of Progress M-28M with the ISS is scheduled for 10:13 on July 5," the source said.
The docking will take place in the automatic mode. If anything goes wrong, Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Korniyenko who are currently working at the International Space Station (ISS) will be ready to dock the Progress manually.
The Progress M-28M will be the first Progress spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) since February. US Dragon arrived at the ISS in April this year. Two spacecraft loaded with stocks have failed to reach the ISS over the past two months. Late in April, Roskosmos lost the Progress M-27M spacecraft with almost 2.5 tonnes of cargo onboard. A private US spacecraft Dragon carrying about 2,000 tonnes of cargo had an accident last Sunday.
The Progress M-28M is expected to deliver fuel, air, oxygen, containers and equipment for scientific experiments; water and food, the Mission Control Centre told TASS.
"About 430 kilograms of food products will be delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) this time. It is 100 kilograms more than had been sent on the previous Progress spacecraft. Progress M-28M will also deliver the US cargo (186 kg) and US scientific equipment (55 kg) to the orbit.
Alexander Agureyev from the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences who is responsible for the ISS crew’s nutrition told TASS in previous interviews that Progress M-28M would carry more food to the station than the previous spacecraft. The standard food ratios include canned fish and meat, fresh apples, tomatoes, oranges, onions and garlic as well as confectionaries.
A Soyuz-U carrier rocket with the Progress M-28M onboard lifted off from the Baikonur space launch facility in Kazakhstan at 07:56 Moscow time on July 3. The spacecraft was successfully put in orbit nine minutes after the launch.
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