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| Image above: Artist's rendering of
the International Space Station showing the ISS Progress 26, the ISS
Progress 25 and a Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station |
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Progress 26 launches to the International Space Station
The ISS Progress 26 (P26) craft launched Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan at 1:34 p.m. EDT.
The P26 vehicle is loaded with 5,111 pounds of food, fuel, air, water
and supplies. P26 is scheduled to dock with the station on August 5.
On the station, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, RN3FI, and Flight Engineer
Olog Kotov reconfigured the Kurs automated rendezvous system in the Zvezda
Service Module in preparation for the P26 docking.
Wednesday’s undocking of the ISS Progress 24 (P24) was successfully
completed at 10:07 a.m. Configuration issues resulted in the Progress
not doing the separation burn, but the deorbit burn occurred on time.
P24 was about four miles from the station when the deorbit burn began
a little after 2:40 p.m. Wednesday, sending the Progress and its load
of trash to destruction in the Earth's atmosphere.
Flight Engineer Clay Anderson, KD5PLA, conducted routine periodic inspections
of the station's smoke detectors Thursday and Kotov did routine air sampling
in the station.
Yurchikhin and Anderson continued to pack items no longer needed on the
station for return aboard space shuttle Endeavour during its STS-118 mission.
Anderson also held a conference with the STS-118 crew to discuss spacewalk
preparations.
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