Progress 84 approaches the space station before docking at 12:19 EDT on May 24, 2023.
The uncrewed Roscosmos Progress 84 spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station’s Poisk module at 12:19 p.m. EDT Wednesday, May 24, following launch on a Soyuz rocket at 8:56 a.m. (5:56 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Progress is delivering about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the space station for the Expedition 69 crew.
The Progress 81 cargo craft approaches the International Space Station on June 3, 2022 for a docking to the Zvezda service module’s rear port.
NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website now are providing live coverage of the rendezvous and docking of a Roscosmos cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. An automatic docking to the Poisk module is planned at 12:20 p.m. EDT.
The uncrewed Progress 84 launched on a Soyuz rocket at 8:56 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 24 (5:56 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The Progress 84 cargo craft is safely in orbit and headed to the station following a successful launch on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA TV
The uncrewed Roscosmos Progress 84 is safely in orbit headed for the International Space Station following launch at 8:56 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 24 (5:56 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The resupply spaceship reached preliminary orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas as planned, on its way to meet up with the orbiting laboratory and its Expedition 69 crew members.
Progress will dock to the Poisk module at 12:20 p.m. Coverage on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website will resume at 11:30 a.m. for rendezvous and docking.
Progress will deliver about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the space station.
Russia’s Progress 76 resupply ship is pictured approaching the station in July of 2020 packed with nearly three tons of food, fuel and supplies.
NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website now are providing live coverage of the launch of a Roscosmos cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station.
The uncrewed Progress 84 is scheduled to lift off on a Soyuz rocket at 8:56 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 24 (5:56 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
After a two-orbit journey, Progress will dock to the station’s Poisk module at 12:20 p.m. NASA coverage will resume at 11:30 a.m. for rendezvous and docking
Cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev is pictured in his Orlan spacesuit during a spacewalk outside the Zvezda service module on Aug. 15, 2018.
Spacewalk preparations are under way at the International Space Station as two cosmonauts get ready for the first of three spacewalks set to begin on Tuesday. The rest of the Expedition 69 crew is cleaning up following the departure of a U.S. cargo craft while also working on a pair of Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), or spacesuits.
Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin are set to begin their second spacewalk together at 9:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday. The duo spent Monday reviewing the tasks required to move a radiator from the Rassvet module to the Nauka science module during the planned six-hour and 40-minute excursion. Prokopyev and Petelin also set up their spacewalking tools, installed components on their Orlan spacesuits, and organized the Poisk module’s airlock where they will exit the station.
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev will assist the spacewalkers in and out of their spacesuits on Tuesday and command the European robotic arm to maneuver the radiator and attach it to Nauka. NASA TV begins its live spacewalk coverage at 9 p.m. on Tuesday on the agency’s app and website.
Two NASA Flight Engineers spent Monday cleaning up after the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft departed the orbital outpost on Saturday returning 4,300 pounds of science experiments and station hardware back to Earth for analysis. Astronauts Woody Hoburg and Frank Rubio cleaned and stowed biology hardware housing samples that were shipped back to Earth aboard Dragon. Those samples and others will now be examined by scientists to understand how the human body adapts to living and working in weightlessness.
The NASA duo also partnered up with UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi loading another U.S. resupply ship ahead of its departure at the end of the week. The three flight engineers are packing trash and other discarded gear inside the Northrop Grumman Cygnus space freighter before it leaves the station later this week. Alneyadi will be on duty that morning monitoring Cygnus as mission controllers on the ground command the Canadarm2 robotic arm to release the spacecraft from the Unity module’s Earth-facing port. Cygnus will then reenter Earth’s atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean for a fiery, but safe demise.
Finally, Alneyadi and NASA Flight Engineer Stephen Bowen worked together resizing a pair of EMUs in the Quest airlock. The two astronauts are getting the U.S. spacesuits ready for an upcoming spacewalk to continue upgrading the station’s power generation capability.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour with four Crew-6 members aboard approaches the International Space Station on March 3, 2023.
The newly-expanded International Space Station crew of 11 members kicked off a busy work week today conducting a variety of research and visiting vehicle activities. Meanwhile, four Expedition 68 crew members are also getting ready to complete their mission and return to Earth.
New station residents Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg of NASA, who commanded and piloted the SpaceX Crew-6 mission respectively, reviewed docked Crew Dragon procedures first thing on Monday. The duo, along Crew-6 mission specialist Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos, automatically docked Crew Dragon Endeavour to the Harmony module’s space-facing port at 1:40 a.m. EST on Friday. The quartet will live and work aboard the orbital outpost for six months.
The four newest crew members continue getting up to speed with life on orbit familiarizing themselves with space station operations and systems. The foursome also spent Monday installing new space biology hardware, replacing electronic components, and updating emergency procedures for the expanded crew.
The orbiting crew will soon return to a seven-member status when four station residents finalize their mission that began last year. Flight Engineers Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, along with Koichi Wakata of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos, launched to the station as the SpaceX Crew-5 mission on Oct. 5 joining the Expedition 68 crew one day later. All four homebound crew members have begun their handover activities. They will enter the Crew Dragon Endurance, undock from the Harmony module’s forward port, then splash down off the coast of Florida on a soon-to-be-announced date.
The next Dragon mission to the station will be the SpaceX CRS-27 resupply mission scheduled for March 14 at 8:30 p.m. EDT. The Dragon cargo craft will automatically dock about 24 hours later to the Harmony port vacated by the Crew Dragon Endurance when it undocks a few days earlier.
The space station’s other three crewmates, Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin of Roscosmos, and NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio joined each other and practiced on a computer the procedures for returning to Earth inside the Soyuz MS-23 crew ship. Rubio earlier had removed his seat liner from the Crew Dragon Endurance and installed it inside the MS-23. Prokopyev and Petelin also conducted tests inside the Soyuz MS-22 crew ship that will return to Earth unoccupied in late March.
The orbital outpost maneuvered out of the way of an Earth observation satellite early Monday. The docked ISS Progress 83 resupply ship fired its engines for just over six minutes slightly raising the station’s orbit to avoid the approaching satellite. The new orbital trajectory will not impact the upcoming departure of the Crew-5 mission.
NASA is considering extending the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS)-2 contracts to ensure continuous cargo resupply services to the International Space Station. For more information, visit https://www.sam.gov.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Endeavour atop is pictured during a sunset at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
The seven-member Expedition 68 crew will wait a few more days for the arrival of the SpaceX Crew-6 mission. Meanwhile, the International Space Station residents began the work week with a variety of research activities, lab maintenance, and cargo operations.
The space station’s four astronauts and three cosmonauts will soon welcome four SpaceX Crew-6 members who are counting down to a launch at 12:34 a.m. EST on Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The quartet was due to lift off on Monday at 1:45 a.m. aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour before launch controllers detected an issue preventing data from confirming a full load of the ignition source for the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage Merlin engines.
Back aboard the orbital outpost, Flight Engineers Nicole Mann of NASA and Koichi Wakata of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) spent about an hour readying food and sleeping bags for the visiting crew. Mann also relocated computers to the cupola to prepare for the upcoming rendezvous and docking monitoring operations. Wakata configured research hardware that will house a new space biology investigation being delivered aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour.
Mann began her day with NASA Flight Engineer Josh Cassada performing blood draws, spinning the samples in a centrifuge, then stowing the samples in a science freezer for later analysis. Cassada would later gather cargo to be stowed aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour after its arrival. NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio started his day on orbital plumbing work before finally watering tomato plants growing for the Veg-05 space botany study.
Roscosmos Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin spent Monday unpacking cargo recently delivered aboard the ISS Progress 83 resupply ship. Petelin then joined Flight Engineer Anna Kikina and tested a specialized suit that offsets the affects of microgravity potentially helping crew members adjust quicker to gravity after returning to Earth.
The uncrewed Progress 82 cargo spacecraft conducted a deorbit burn at 10:15 p.m. EST Saturday, Feb. 18, over the Pacific Ocean after spending four months at the International Space Station.
Loaded with trash, Progress 82 undocked from the space station’s Poisk module at 9:26 p.m. EST Friday, Feb. 17. The Progress deorbit was delayed about 24-hours while Roscosmos engineers analyzed imagery acquired after undocking of the radiator area of the spacecraft, which is the suspected region where a coolant leak occurred on Feb. 11.
On Feb. 17, the uncrewed Roscosmos Progress 82 cargo spacecraft undocked without issue from the International Space Station’s Poisk module at 9:26 p.m. EST. Following undocking, Expedition 68 cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin sent commands from the station’s Roscosmos segment to rotate the Progress for additional visual inspections using space station’s external cameras of the general area where a coolant leak occurred on Feb. 11.
After Progress departure from the space station, flight controllers at Mission Control in Moscow canceled Friday’s scheduled deorbit burn while Roscosmos analyzed the post-undocking imagery collected of the Progress radiator.
Early Saturday, Roscosmos managers decided to deorbit Progress Saturday, Feb. 18, with a deorbit burn time of 10:15 p.m. EST. Progress remains in a stable configuration and on a safe trajectory well away from the International Space Station. Loaded with trash, Progress will deorbit over the Pacific Ocean after spending four months at the station.
Following the undocking of the uncrewed Roscosmos Progress 82 cargo spacecraft from the International Space Station at 9:26 p.m. EST on Friday, Feb. 17, flight controllers at Mission Control in Moscow canceled the scheduled 11:02 p.m. deorbit burn, which would have set the vehicle on course to burn up over the Pacific Ocean.
Progress 82 currently is in a stable configuration and on a safe trajectory that keeps it well away from the International Space Station while teams on the ground discuss a forward plan.
