Two supply vessels blasted off within days of each other this week – both heading for the International Space Station (ISS).
On 19 February at 14:39 GMT, Space X, a private company, launched a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39a at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch pad is historic because it was built for the Apollo moon landing programme of the 60s and 70s. It was then used for space shuttle launches. Since April 2014, the launch pad has been used by Space X, which signed a 20-year lease with NASA.
The SpaceX capsule launched on Sunday carried 2.5 tonnes of experiments and supplies. It will remain at the ISS until March, when it will return Earth with cargo. The capsule will splash down in the Pacific.
The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket returned to Florida eight minutes after launch, completing a soft landing so that it can be refuelled and reused.
The second supply mission took flight from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 22 February at 05:58 GMT. The 2.7 tonnes of cargo was loaded into a Russian Progress spacecraft and launched atop a Soyuz rocket in sub-zero temperatures from a snow-covered launch pad.
Nine minutes later, it reached orbit. This was the first launch of a Soyuz rocket since 1 December, when a fault in the third-stage motor caused the vehicle to explode. The fault was traced to poor materials used in the manufacturing.
Astronauts look forward to the cargo missions arriving because they bring fresh fruit and other produce to liven up their diets. The missions also carry essentials. The supplies on the Russian spacecraft include 420kg of fresh water and 23kg of oxygen.
