|
The Progress M1-11 was launched from the the Baikonur cosmodrome that Russia rents from its Central Asian neighbour Kazakhstan at 1158 GMT to deliver water, food, space suits and fuel for the two-man Russian-American team on the space station, the control center press service said.
The transport vessel is expected to dock with the station at 1318 GMT Saturday, the center said.
Progress will also deliver two scientific devices to measure the level of radiation absorbed by humans during long-term space flights, part of a Russian-European experiment, the center said.
In a related development, Russia's space chief Yury Koptev, director of Rosaviakosmos, said Thursday Moscow was counting on Europe to help develop the aging ISS.
The European Space Agency is building a new space transport vehicle, called the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), to help supply the International Space Station.
The new ATV is intended to bring new supplies to the ISS in September 2004. It is scheduled to dock with the Russian section of the ISS for six months before taking 6.5 tonnes of waste away with it and burning up over the Pacific Ocean.
Russia has been the only country servicing the orbiting space station since the United States grounded its shuttle programme following the breakup last February of its Columbia spacecraft as it returned to earth from the ISS.
Once the European vessel is in place, Koptev said Russia will be able to save some of the cost now spent on the supply trips and put it into "developing the Russian part" of the space station, in a statement quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency.
He said Moscow had earmarked close to 15 billion rubles (nearly 526 million dollars, 422 million euros) in 2004 for the space sector, according to a statement cited by the Ria Novosti agency.
But this sum "will not allow" any substantial progress on the Russian part of the ISS, he said.
The ISS was launched in 1998 as a collaborative venture among 16 partners including the United States, Russia, the European Union, Japan and Canada.
SPACE.WIRE |