Russian freighter delivers iPads and more to space station

[bananas]

Source: MSNBC

An unmanned Russian cargo ship pulled up to the International Space Station on Wednesday carrying tons of fresh supplies for the orbiting lab's three-man crew in the first successful delivery mission since an August rocket crash.

The robotic Progress 45 spacecraft docked at the space station at 7:41 a.m. ET, ending a three-day trip that began with a smooth Sunday launch from the 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. That mission began the station's unbroken streak of continued human presence in space.

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The successful Progress 45 mission paves the way for a planned late-night Nov. 13 launch of three new space station crew members aboard a Soyuz rocket similar to that used to launch the robotic Progress spacecraft. Russia's Federal Space Agency had delayed the launch of the station's new crew to make sure its Soyuz rockets were safe for manned launches.

That delay in regular crew launches forced the space station to drop from its full six-person crew size down to a three-man staff. Space station managers also discussed the possibility of leaving the space station without a crew, if it became necessary.

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Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45134162/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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