The successful Sunday launch of a Russian cargo ship on a mission to resupply the International Space Station is an important step in resuming manned flights to the orbiting laboratory after a launch accident destroyed another unmanned freighter in August, according to Russian and NASA officials.
"It was a perfect launch," Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said, according to reports. The Progress M-13M spacecraft atop a Soyuz rocket blasted off on schedule at 6:11 a.m. ET on Sunday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and has now reached its designated orbit.
The supply ship is scheduled to dock at the space station on Wednesday. Included in the 2.8 tons of food, fuel, and supplies headed for the ISS is a pair of Apple iPads, according to reports.
Sunday's launch was the second successful one involving a Soyuz rocket since a glitch doomed the August attempt to launch a Progress resupply vehicle. The European Space Agency used a Soyuz rocket to successfully launch a pair of satellites as part of its Galileo project from French Guiana earlier this month.
The ISS is currently home to a bare-bones crew of three astronauts who are scheduled to return to Earth on Nov. 21. The space station normally houses six crew members, or two teams of three astronauts, whose roughly five-month-long stints on the $100 billion orbiting lab are staggered to allow for fresh teams to keep the station fully manned as much of the time as possible.
But the August crash has delayed manned missions to the space station as Russian space authorities have scrambled to identify and fix the problem with their Soyuz booster rockets, which they now say are good to go. One team of ISS crew members returned from the space station in September and if the current schedule holds up, a new crew would take off for the station on Nov. 13 and arrive on Nov. 15, just days before the astronauts currently aboard are set to depart.
If the Nov. 13 launch is delayed for some reason, the ISS would in all likelihood be unmanned for some period of time for the first time in 11 years.
Sunday's successful launch "sets the stage" for the manned mission in mid-November, NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier said in a statement. The current schedule has another manned mission planned for December to return the station to full crew capacity, he said.
Since NASA ended its space shuttle program earlier this year, manned missions to the ISS have been solely the province of the Russian space agency. For NASA, that's put an increased emphasis on finding alternative means for getting astronauts to the space station and bringing them back again safely. The U.S. space agency hopes to secure $850 million to help fund private "space taxis" to start ferrying crews by 2016.
"It was a perfect launch," Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said, according to reports. The Progress M-13M spacecraft atop a Soyuz rocket blasted off on schedule at 6:11 a.m. ET on Sunday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and has now reached its designated orbit.
The supply ship is scheduled to dock at the space station on Wednesday. Included in the 2.8 tons of food, fuel, and supplies headed for the ISS is a pair of Apple iPads, according to reports.
Sunday's launch was the second successful one involving a Soyuz rocket since a glitch doomed the August attempt to launch a Progress resupply vehicle. The European Space Agency used a Soyuz rocket to successfully launch a pair of satellites as part of its Galileo project from French Guiana earlier this month.
The ISS is currently home to a bare-bones crew of three astronauts who are scheduled to return to Earth on Nov. 21. The space station normally houses six crew members, or two teams of three astronauts, whose roughly five-month-long stints on the $100 billion orbiting lab are staggered to allow for fresh teams to keep the station fully manned as much of the time as possible.
But the August crash has delayed manned missions to the space station as Russian space authorities have scrambled to identify and fix the problem with their Soyuz booster rockets, which they now say are good to go. One team of ISS crew members returned from the space station in September and if the current schedule holds up, a new crew would take off for the station on Nov. 13 and arrive on Nov. 15, just days before the astronauts currently aboard are set to depart.
If the Nov. 13 launch is delayed for some reason, the ISS would in all likelihood be unmanned for some period of time for the first time in 11 years.
Sunday's successful launch "sets the stage" for the manned mission in mid-November, NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier said in a statement. The current schedule has another manned mission planned for December to return the station to full crew capacity, he said.
Since NASA ended its space shuttle program earlier this year, manned missions to the ISS have been solely the province of the Russian space agency. For NASA, that's put an increased emphasis on finding alternative means for getting astronauts to the space station and bringing them back again safely. The U.S. space agency hopes to secure $850 million to help fund private "space taxis" to start ferrying crews by 2016.
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