Author: Stephen Clark / Source: Spaceflight Now
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 1445 GMT (10:45 a.m. EDT) Thursday after a successful docking.
A Russian Progress resupply and refueling freighter launched Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on top of a Soyuz booster.
The cargo craft completed the fastest rendezvous in the history of the International Space Station program with a successful docking less than three-and-a-half hours later.The Progress MS-11 supply ship delivered more than 3.7 tons (3.4 metric tons) of propellant, food, hardware, water and breathing air for the space station and its six-person crew, according to a cargo manifest provided by NASA.
Mounted on top of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket, the Progress supply ship lifted off at 1101:35 GMT (7:01:35 a.m. EDT) Thursday from Launch Pad No. 31 at Baikonur. The launch was timed for just 38 seconds before the space station passed over Baikonur, allowing the Progress spacecraft to rapidly catch up to the orbiting complex during two orbits around Earth, arriving within a few hours after separation from the Soyuz third stage.
After its late afternoon blastoff from Baikonur, the Soyuz-2.1a rocket headed northeast on a track aligned with the space station’s orbit. The Soyuz rocket’s four first stage boosters consumed their supply of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants around two minutes after liftoff, followed by jettison of the launcher’s aerodynamic shroud covering the Progress cargo capsule at about T+plus 3 minutes.
The core stage, also known as the second stage, shut down its four-nozzle engine around five minutes into the mission, giving way to an RD-0110 engine on the third stage to power the Progress cargo craft into a preliminary orbit around Earth. The Progress MS-11 supply ship separated from the Soyuz third stage at T+plus 8 minutes, 45 seconds, and immediately unfurled two…
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