American astronauts shared rations with Russian colleagues. Progress accident crashes food and medicine at ISS

    Two of the last three launches of cargo ships to the International Space Station were unsuccessful, preventing the delivery of scientific equipment, food, fuel, oxygen and other useful and vital cargo to the expedition members at the scheduled time. Disruptions in supply lead to the need for even closer cooperation between Russian and American colleagues: astronauts shared their diets with astronauts after the Progress M-27M accident, and because of the SpaceX CRS-7 spacecraft accident, the situation may change in the opposite direction.

    Despite these difficulties, the station’s crew carries out the entire scientific program as planned.

    image

    On April 28, the Progress M-27M cargo ship was launched to the International Space Station; it was the 150th anniversary launch of the Progress. The launch was successful, the ship went into orbit, but later there were reports of problems on board. May 8 at 05:04 Moscow time, "Progress M-27M" burned out in dense layers of the atmosphere . Descent from orbit occurred at 160 orbits over the central part of the Pacific Ocean. On board the ship were two and a half tons of payloads, including fuel, oxygen, food, equipment for scientific experiments, packages for astronauts. From the scientific equipment, there was a voltage adapter on board for using Russian equipment in the American segment and vice versa. The adapter was not delivered, and management took a risk by allowing the use of equipment without an adapter.



    On June 28, the SpaceX CRS-7 truck was launched from the Cape Canaveral to the ISS on the Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle. 2 minutes 19 seconds after the launch, the rocket experienced problems, the launch failed . On board were scientific experiments, food, clothing, hygiene items and other traditional items for astronauts, as well as two sealed dock adapters for future ships, including Dragon 2.



    On July 3, another Progress was sent to the ISS - Progress M-28M. Among the cargoes - 880 kg of fuel, 520 kg of fuel for refueling, 22 kg of oxygen, 26 kg of air, 420 kg of water and 430 kg of Russian food and utensils, 186 kg of American cargo for the Russian crew are “food, clothing, hygiene products, crew preferences. ” The total mass of all delivered goods amounted to 2381 kg, the list can be found on the website of the Center for Operation of Ground-based Space Infrastructure Facilities . The shipment was successfully delivered.



    Disruptions in the delivery of goods to the International Space Station lead to a shortage of food and medicine. After the Progress M-27M accident, the Russian segment had a reserve of no more than a month and a half. At the end of June, the astronauts had 88 sets of food, when their American colleagues had 270-300. American astronauts had to share their rations, Valery Bogomolov , deputy director of the Institute for Biomedical Problems (RAS) , told TASS . Failure to launch SpaceX CRS-7 may cause the reverse situation.
    At the accident “Progress” were individual medical styling for Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalki. They were not delivered, and we had to look for a replacement among the means on board. Now, thanks to the new "Progress", stocks are replenished. On the American "Dragon", in turn, were medical styling for American astronauts. In a timely manner, the replacement was uploaded to our Progress and delivered to the ISS.
    Valery Bogomolov noted that the ISS crew, thanks to professionalism and despite the accident of two cargo ships, implements the entire scientific program without sacrificing station maintenance.

    Also popular now: