International Space Station Status Report: SS07-02

International Space Station Status Report: SS07-02

After a three-day holiday to celebrate the Russian Orthodox Christmas, astronauts on the International Space Station spent the week packing trash into the Progress 22 cargo craft and unpacking items delivered by Progress 23 as they prepared for the arrival of new supplies. Packed with discarded items no longer needed on the outpost, Progress 22 will undock from the station’s Pirs Docking Compartment next Tuesday at 5:28 p.m. CST. Its engines will be fired three hours later to send it back into the atmosphere, where it will burn up.

The station crew, Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineers Mikhail Tyurin and Suni Williams, geared up for the docking of ISS Progress 24 at Pirs, which is slated for Friday, Jan. 19 at 9 p.m. CST. Progress 24 will launch on Wednesday, Jan. 17, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 8:12 p.m. CST.

The new Russian cargo ship will bring about 2.5 tons of food, fuel, oxygen and supplies to the complex, including clothing and spacewalk hardware for the next resident crew that will arrive at the station in April. In preparation for the undocking of Progress 22, Tyurin disassembled and removed the docking mechanism in the hatchway between the cargo craft and the docking compartment. The mechanism will be returned to Earth on Space Shuttle Atlantis’ mission to the complex in March.

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