News

April 20, 2012.
Automatic Cargo Vehicle Progress M-15M is flying to the ISS

At 16:50:24 Moscow Time an automatic transport cargo vehicle Progress M-15M was launched from the Baikonur Launch site.

The purpose of the launch is to support further in-orbit operation of the International Space Station (ISS) in accordance with the Russian commitments under this project.

The main objective of the mission is to deliver more than 2.6 tons of various cargoes to the Station, that are required to continue the ISS mission in a manned mode, and provide living and working conditions for the crew.

The vehicle was inserted into a parking low-Earth orbit with the following parameters: 51.63 deg. inclination, 193.68 km minimal altitude, 256.52 km maximum altitude, 88.7 min orbital period.

The onboard systems of the vehicle operate normally.

The vehicle prelaunch processing and launch operations were performed at the cosmodrome under the direction of the State Commission (the Chairman is Roscosmos Head V.A. Popovkin). The Commission accepted a decision to implement the vehicle prelaunch processing and launch phases on the basis of the Technical Management reports. President of S.P. Korolev RSC Energia and General Designer V.A. Lopota is at the head of the Technical Management.

Based on the data of telemetry information and reports of the ISS Expedition-30 crew the Station onboard systems operate in the design modes. The Station is ready for docking with the vehicle.

The space cargo vehicle docking is planned for April 22 at 18:41 Moscow time.

 

For reference:

1. The fuel, oxygen, air reserves, food rations including fresh food; equipment for biological, biotechnological, biomedical and technical investigations and experiments, additional equipment for the Station Russian Segment modules and also parcels for the ISS crew were delivered to orbit in the vehicle compartments.
2. Currently working in orbit under the ISS program are: Russian cosmonauts Anton Skaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin, and Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronauts Daniel Burbank and Donald Pettit, and European astronaut Andre Kuipers.
3. The Progress М-15М vehicle is the next vehicle of a new, up-to-date series of the Progress M cargo transport vehicles developed by RSC Energia. The vehicle as compared with the previous series of the Progress M vehicles has the improved flight technical characteristics. The first vehicle of this new series was launched on November 26, 2008 and completed its flight on February 8, 2009.