Supplies to Space Station

A Russian Progress transport ship was on 31 October sent up to the International Space Station with fresh supplies.

Last Wednesday, the 31st October, was a Progress spacecraft re-launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.

Less than six hours after the start arrived Progress 49 to the ISS. The number 49 refers to the 49th once a Progress vehicle flying goods to the orbiting outpost in space. 

On board is around 2.9 tons of supplies, including 930 kg of fuel, 420 kg of water and 1242 kg spare parts and equipment for experiments.

Progress spacecraft built to connect automatically with the ISS, the crew on board can take control if there is a problem with the automatic. Currently made up the crew of the ISS by NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Kevin Ford, the Russian cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko, Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.

When a Progress vehicle is emptied of supplies, it will be used as a rubbish bin. Equipment that is no longer needed and waste poured into the vessel. Then coupled Progress spacecraft from the ISS and will be guided toward Earth, where it burns up in the atmosphere. The previous supply flights to the ISS ended up not in this way, since it was implemented with the private Dragon space capsule, landing softly in the Pacific.