Unmanned Vessel Launched From Baikonur Thursday

Russia's Progress 24, an unmanned Russian cargo ship, lifted off the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh Steppes in the early morning hours on Thursday atop a Soyuz launch vehicle enroute to the International Space Station for a replenishment mission.

The ship, carrying 2.5+ tons of cargo, is set to rendezvous with the ISS late Friday evening. It's out with the old and in with the new for this mission, as Progress 24 replaces Progress 22 after it was jettisoned from the ISS Tuesday -- with a load of old equipment and scrap -- to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

NASA spokesperson Lynette Madison told Space.com the Progress 24 spacecraft included some new spacewalk supplies tucked amid the 3,285 pounds of dry cargo packed in its hold. The cargo ship is also hauling 110 pounds of oxygen and 1,720 pounds of propellant to the ISS, as well as new hardware to aid a Japanese experiment studying protein crystallization.

The ship is also carrying aloft some memorabilia: A portrait of Sergei Korolev, the chief rocket designer for the former Soviet Union. Korolev led the Sputnik program which placed the first man-made satellite in Earth orbit, and the program to launch Yuri Gagarin, the first human in Earth orbit.

The portrait, affixed to the exterior of Progress 24, honors the 100th anniversary of Korolev's birthdate January 12, 1907.

Progress 24 will share ISS docking space with an older cargo vessel, Progress 23, which remains attached to the station's Zvezda service module.

When Progress 24 docks, the crew of Expedition 14, Flight Engineer Sunita Williams, Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, will unload and stow the gear and materials, then begin preparations for the arrival of STS-117, the shuttle Atlantis, scheduled for March 16.

FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.roscosmos.ru