Progress 45 Cargo Craft Launches From Baikonur

An unpiloted ISS Progress 45 cargo craft launched, successfully, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0611 EDT Sunday. Less than nine minutes later, the Progress reached its preliminary orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas.

The Russian cargo craft is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station on Wednesday at 0740. It contains 2.8 tons of food, fuel and supplies for the Expedition 29 crew, including 1,653 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 3,108 pounds of spare parts, experiment hardware and other supplies.

It replaces the trash-filled ISS Progress 42 cargo craft which undocked from the station’s Pirs docking compartment Saturday. The unpiloted Progress 42, which arrived at the station in late April, was deorbited for a destructive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere a few hours after undocking.

Once the station crew members have unloaded the cargo, Progress 45 will be filled with trash and station discards, then undocked from the station in late January. Following its departure, controllers in Mission Control, Moscow, will raise its orbit to 310 miles (500 kilometers) so that they can deploy a microsatellite called Chibis. Once the microsatellite is deployed, Progress 45 will be deorbited for a destructive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

A previous launch attempt, Progress 44, experienced a third-stage engine shutdown during its launch due to an anomaly, on August 24th. Given the trajectory and energy, the Progress did not reach orbit and landed in the Altai Region of Russia.

NASA Statement On Success Of Russian Progress Launch

The following is a statement from Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington, on Sunday's launch of the Progress 45 spacecraft to the International Space Station.

"We congratulate our Russian colleagues on Sunday's successful launch of ISS Progress 45, and the spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station. Pending the outcome of a series of flight readiness meetings in the coming weeks, this successful flight sets the stage for the next Soyuz launch, planned for mid-November. The December Soyuz mission will restore the space station crew size to six and continue normal crew rotations."

FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.nasa.gov/station