The ISS Progress 26 (P26) is on course to arrive at the International Space Station just about on time, but the space shuttle Endeavour is going to be a little later than planned. The station crew members, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Clay Anderson, got an early start to their weekend with a light-duty day on Friday. It was scheduled because Sunday will be a busy day, with the arrival of the new Progress scheduled for about 2 40 p.m. EDT.
Meanwhile, Endeavour's launch was pushed back from Tuesday to Wednesday at 6:36 p.m. That was done to give workers additional time to complete routine prelaunch activities. Station crew members held a conference by radio Friday morning with their future visitors of the Endeavour crew.
Progress 26 launched Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:34 p.m. It is loaded with 5,111 pounds of food, fuel, air, water and supplies. The P26 will dock to the Pirs docking compartment. NASA TV coverage will begin at 2:00 p.m.
earlier related report
Energia Launch Report for Progress 26
Baikonur (SPX) Aug 02 – Space transportation logistics vehicle Progress M-61 was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur launch site at 21:33:48 Moscow Time. The launch objective is to deliver to ISS more than 2.5 tons of various cargoes. These consist of supplies of oxygen, water and food, propellant, consumables, scientific equipment and hardware that are necessary to maintain the space station operation in manned mode and to provide conditions that are necessary for the crew living and working on-board the station, including a set of on-board computers for the Russian Segment of the space station.
The spacecraft was put into a baseline low-Earth orbit with 51.64 degrees inclination, 191.4 km minimal altitude, 267.9 km maximum altitude, and 88.8 min orbital period.
The on-board systems of the spacecraft operate normally.
The spacecraft pre-launch processing and launch were carried out at the launch site under the direction of the State Commission. The Commission was making the decisions to proceed with different stages of pre-launch processing and launch based on the findings of the Technical Management.
Working at the Baikonur launch site during the pre-launch operations and launch were the RSC Energia President and Designer General V.A.Lopota, managers and specialists from S.P.Korolev RSC Energia, representatives of Roskosmos, subcontractors, and other organizations in the industry.
Observing the spacecraft pre-launch processing and launch were the head of the Federal Agency for Science and Innovations S.N.Mazurenko, director of the Russian scientific center Kurchatov Institute, acting vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences M.V.Kovalchuk, representatives of the Russian Federation State Duma, NASA and the Japanese space agency.
According to telemetry data and reports from the crew of ISS Expedition 15, the on-board systems of the space station operate in normal modes. The space station is ready for the docking with the spacecraft, which is scheduled for August 5, 2007, approximately at 22:40.
Working on-board ISS is a crew consisting of Fedor Yurchikhin (RSC Energia cosmonaut tester, crew commander), Oleg Kotov (Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center cosmonaut tester, flight engineer) and Clayton Anderson (NASA astronaut, flight engineer).
