A Russian cargo spacecraft will be disengaged from the International Space Station Wednesday, de-orbited and sunk in the Pacific Ocean a few hours later.
The spokesman of the Russian Mission Control Center Valeriy Lyndin told the Russian RIA-Novosti news agency the spacecraft Progress M-50 will be disengaged at 14:34 p.m. ET and sunk at 18:24 p.m. ET the same day.
The Progress M-50 will be sunk in the Pacific Ocean, 1,800 miles to the east of Wellington, New Zealand, the Interfax news agency said.
The Progress M-51 is scheduled to take off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 17:19 ET Thursday and dock on the ISS at 19:05 ET Saturday, RIA-Novosti said.
The ISS crew, Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao, are experiencing a lack of food on board. Their food ration has been cut in half. If for some reason the Progress M-51 with food containers does not reach the station Saturday, the crew members will be evacuated Dec. 30, Russian media reported earlier this month.
