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Your support makes all the difference.A Russian cargo ship has blasted off on a mission to dock with the unmanned Mir space station and then help destroy the 15-year-old space complex by pushing it into Earth's atmosphere.
A Russian cargo ship has blasted off on a mission to dock with the unmanned Mir space station and then help destroy the 15-year-old space complex by pushing it into Earth's atmosphere.
The unmanned Progress M1-5 cargo ship, carrying twice the usual amount of fuel, was launched as scheduled at 7:28am Moscow time (0428 GMT) from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan, said Vera Medvedkova, a spokeswoman for the Mission Control.
The rocket lifted off into a clear sky over the desert, and successfully entered orbit 12 minutes after liftoff. The ship is scheduled to dock with the station early on Saturday, Medvedkova said.
The extra fuel carried by the Progress will be used to fire Mir's thrusters and push the 140-ton station down toward Earth for discarding in a remote area in the Pacific Ocean. The station's demise is tentatively set for March 6.
The Progress' launch was originally scheduled last Thursday but was delayed after a sudden power loss disabled Mir's central computer and its orientation system. Russian controllers quickly fixed the problem, but encountered a new one over the weekend when Mir's gyroscopes failed.
The gyroscopes are the preferred, fuel free way of aligning the station. The craft can also be steered using dozens of small thrusters.
If anything goes awry, an emergency crew is on standby to blast off for Mir and direct the cargo ship's docking and subsequent descent.
The decision to dump Mir was made by the government last fall against the protests of many cosmonauts, space officials and politicians who deplored the loss of the last remaining symbol of Soviet space glory. But the government lacked cash to keep Mir in orbit, and private investors have failed to raise enough money to continue its operation.
A string of accidents, including a fire and a near fatal collision with an unmanned cargo ship in 1997, have raised concerns about its safety and precipitated its discarding. The US space agency NASA had also urged Russia to abandon Mir and concentrate its scarce resources on the new International Space Station.
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