[sarex] Progress Cargo Craft's Arrival a Station Highlight

["ARTHUR Z. ROWE" <N1ORC@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Submitted by Arthur  N1ORC - AMSAT A./C #31468


Progress Cargo Craft's Arrival a Station Highlight, 14 JUNE 2005


ISS Progress 17 spacecraft Crewmembers say they can smell the fresh 
foods aboard a Progress, things like apples taken for granted on Earth, 
shortly after the unpiloted cargo craft docks with the International 
Space Station.


A Progress arrival is an occasion, not only because of the treats for 
the crew but also because of the valuable and necessary equipment and 
supplies it brings to the Station.

The ISS Progress 18 spacecraft is no exception. Among its 4,662 pounds 
of cargo is 397 pounds of propellant, 242 pounds of oxygen and 926 
pounds of water.

Also aboard is a camera to be used to photograph thermal protection 
tiles of Discovery as the orbiter approaches the Station on the Space 
Shuttle's Return to Flight mission, STS-114. It is a replacement for a 
similar camera found to be not working after it was sent to the Station 
aboard ISS Progress 17, which docked to the orbiting laboratory March 2.

Discovery is scheduled to launch no earlier than July 13.

Also aboard ISS Progress 18 is about 3,100 pounds of dry cargo, 
including food, other equipment and supplies and experiment hardware. 
Among that dry cargo are spare parts for the Russian Elektron oxygen 
generation system, which has been out of operation for several weeks. 
Additional Solid Fuel Oxygen Generators (SFOGs) or "candles," each of 
which can provide enough oxygen for one crewmember for one day, also are 
among cargo items.

The Progress is similar in appearance and some design elements to the 
Soyuz spacecraft, which brings three crewmembers to the Station, serves 
as a lifeboat while they are there and returns them to Earth. The aft 
module -- the instrumentation and propulsion module -- is nearly identical.

But the second of the three Progress sections is a refueling module, and 
the third, uppermost as the Progress sits on the launch pad, is a cargo 
module. On the Soyuz, the descent module, where the crew is seated on 
launch and which returns them to Earth, is the middle module and the 
third is called the orbital module.

The undocking of the previous Progress cargo ship begins the sequence of 
events replacing the old cargo craft with the new. The Progress craft 
being replaced is typically undocked the day before launch of the new 
cargo capsule, and later commanded to deorbit by Russian flight 
controllers, clearing the aft port of Zvezda for the new Progress. 
Filled with trash and discarded items, the departing Progress burns up in
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