Next Supply Ship to Leave for Iss on Dec 24

MOSCOW. Dec 22 (Interfax) – A Progress M-51 supply ship will take off from the Baikonur launch pad on December 24 to deliver food supplies and other cargoes to the International Space Station (ISS), Russian Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin told Interfax on Wednesday.

The new spaceship will replace the ISS’s Progress M-50, which will be sunken in the Pacific Ocean, Lyndin said.

“The Progress M-50 will be replaced by a new supply ship – the Progress-M-51. It will blast off from the Baikonur [launch pad] at 1:19 a.m. Moscow time on December 24. It will deliver about 2.5 tonnes of containers with food supplies, fuel, scientific equipment for experiments and parcels for the ISS crew,” the spokesman said.

The Progress M-50 will disengage itself from the ISS at 10:37 p.m. Moscow time on December 22 and will be sunken in a safe area of the Pacific Ocean at 2:24 a.m. Moscow time on December 23, he said.

Russian Federal Space Agency officials described the launch of the Progress M-51 as an increasingly important step as the ISS crewmembers – Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and U.S. astronaut Leroy Chiao – may run out of their food supplies in mid-January.