International Space Station Status Report #4<br /><br />2003<br />Report #4<br />8 a.m. CST, Sunday, February 2, 2003<br />Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas<br /><br />A Russian Progress 10 resupply craft lifted off today from the Baikonur<br />Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying supplies and new scientific systems<br />hardware to the International Space Station.<br /><br />The cargo ship was launched on time at 6:59 a.m. CST (1259 GMT) and<br />successfully reached orbit nine minutes later with its solar arrays and<br />navigational antennas fully deployed. The Progress is due to dock to the aft<br />port of the Zvezda Service Module on the ISS Tuesday at around 8:50 a.m. CST<br />(1450 GMT).<br /><br />The stage was set for today's launch of the new resupply ship through<br />Saturday's undocking of the older Progress 9 craft, which reached the ISS<br />last June. A few hours after its undocking, the Progress 9 was commanded to<br />deorbit, and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere.<br /><br />Awaiting the arrival of the Progress, Expedition 6 Commander Ken Bowersox,<br />Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit<br />spent a quiet day in orbit, their 71st day in space, and their 69th day<br />aboard the ISS. They were informed of the loss of Columbia and its crew<br />yesterday about an hour after the Shuttle broke up 16 minutes before its<br />scheduled landing.<br /><br />The new Progress 10 is loaded with a ton of supplies for the Expedition 6<br />crew, most notably, replacement parts for the Microgravity Science Glovebox<br />in the Destiny laboratory, which experienced a power failure back in<br />November and has been dormant during Expedition 6. Pettit plans to install<br />the new parts and test the Glovebox as soon as the Progress vehicle is<br />unloaded. If it works, the Glovebox will be used to support all of the<br />experiments planned for this Expedition before the crew returns to Earth in<br />March.<br /><br />Information on the crew's activities aboard the space station, future launch<br />dates, as well as station sighting opportunities from anywhere on the Earth,<br />is available on the Internet at:<br /><br />http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/<br /><br />Details on station science operations can be found on an Internet site<br />administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space<br />Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., at:<br /><br />http://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov/<br /><br />The next station status report will be issued on Tuesday following the<br />Progress 10 docking, or earlier, if events warrant.