Progress Docking Clears Way for Soyuz-TMA Launch

摘要

An unmanned Russian cargo ship reached the international space station Nov. 2 carrying tons of fresh supplies for the orbiting lab's three-man crew in the first successful delivery mission since an August launch failure. The Progress 45 spacecraft docked at the space station at 7:41 a.m. EDT, ending a three-day trip that began with a smooth launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Russian-built Soyuz rocket. By coincidence, the cargo ship docked on the 11th anniversary of the arrival of the first space station crew, Expedition 1, in 2000, a mission that began the station's unbroken streak of continued human presence in space.