A “Progress” cargo vehicle was delivered to the Baikonur cosmodrome from the city of Korolyov, which is near Moscow. Itar-Tass was told at Baikonur on Monday that the 2005 first start of a cargo vehicle to the International Space Station was scheduled for February 28.
“The received Progress M-52 vehicle was placed in one of our assembly and test shops, on platform No. 254, where it will be readied for launching,” a cosmodrome official stated. “Preparation jobs are to begin shortly, pending the arrival of a team of specialists from the Energia Space Rocket Complex,” he added.
The purpose of the cargo vehicle is to bring fuel, food products, scientific instruments and equipment, needed to replenish and service the board systems of the International Space Station,” officials of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) added.
They also noted that it was planned to send to the ISS two piloted “Soyuz-TMA” spaceships and four cargo vehicles this year (one every quarter of the year). “All the launchings will be carried out within the framework of the International Space Program from five launching pads of the Baikonur cosmodrome by means of Soyuz-type boosters.
The International Space Station now has four modules with a total inner space of 470 cubic metres. Its mass tops 180 tons. It is planned to complete the building of the station by 2010. By that time, the “orbital structure” is to grow up to twenty-six modules and elements (six of them will be Russian) and the station’s mass will then equal to about 400 tons.
