News

April 22, 2012.
The International Space Station received Progress М-15М

Upon a two-day free flight Russian cargo transport vehicle Progress М-15М docked to the International Space Station (ISS).

A contact of the docking port of the Pirs Module of the ISS Russian Segment (RS) occurred at 18:39:33 Moscow Time.

The vehicle rendezvous with the Station, its flyby and stationkeeping were performed in the automatic mode in the visibility zone of the Russian ground command measurement system.

The flight control and monitoring of the vehicle and Station systems status in the rendezvous and docking phases were provided by Lead Operational Control Team (LOCT) working at Mission Control Center near Moscow (MCC-M). The Flight Director is First Deputy General Designer of RSC Energia V.A. Soloviev.

The final flight operations during the vehicle rendezvous and docking to the Station were performed under the control of the State Commission (its Chairman is Head of Federal Space Agency V.A. Popovkin) and Technical Management of the manned space complexes flight tests (RSC Energia Technical Director, President, General Designer is V.A. Lopota).

When implementing the vehicle final operations for rendezvous and docking to the ISS MCC-M was attended by representatives of Roscosmos, NASA and ESA who commended their irreproachable performance.

The Russian cosmonauts within the Expedition crew working onboard the ISS who interacted with LOCT controlled parameters of the cargo vehicle rendezvous and docking with the Station.

Based on the data of telemetry information and reports of the ISS crew the Station and the vehicle onboard systems operate in the design modes.

 

 For reference:

1. The vehicle delivered more than 2.6 t of cargo to the Station. Among this cargo: the fuel, water, oxygen, air supplies; food reserves; equipment for systems of medical and sanitary hygienic support and also for systems supporting a gas composition of the Station modules atmosphere; personal protection means; materials and hardware for scientific investigations and experiments; additional equipment for the ISS RS modules, onboard documentation, parcels for the crew, etc.
2. The ISS RS consists of: functional cargo unit Zarya, modules Zvezda, Pirs, Poisk and Rassvet, manned vehicles Soyuz ТМА-03М and Soyuz ТМА-22, cargo transport vehicle Progress М-15М. European cargo vehicle ATV-3 is docked to Service Module Zvezda.
3. The ISS crew: Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Oleg Kononenko; the U.S. astronauts Daniel Burbank and Donald Pettit, European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers.