Image above: The ISS Progress 24 cargo craft rolls out to the launch pad. Image credit: NASA

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Resupply ship commemorating 'Great Designer' heads to space station

A new delivery of propellant, oxygen, experiment hardware and other gear is headed for the International Space Station.

The ISS Progress 24, a Russian resupply ship, lifted off Wednesday at 9:12 p.m. EST from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The new cargo craft is due to link up with the station’s Pirs Docking Compartment Friday at 10 p.m.

Sergei Korolyov at the Kapustin Yar firing range in 1953

An older cargo craft, the ISS Progress 22, left the station Tuesday at 6:29 p.m. About three hours later the Progress 22, loaded with discarded items from the station, entered Earth’s atmosphere and safely burned up.

The launch of the new resupply ship honors the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sergei Korolev – Russia’s “Great Designer” of Soviet spacecraft.

The new Progress bears the portrait of Korolev on the external payload fairing. The spacecraft designer was born on Jan. 12, 1907.

Read more about Sergei Korolev

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