Progress MS-29 cargo spaceship to bring New Year's gifts to ISS
A Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-29 cargo spaceship will be launched from the Baikonur spaceport on November 21. The spaceship will deliver more than 2.4 tons of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos announced, TASS reports.
The launch of the rocket with the Year of the Family logo, is scheduled for 3:22 p.m. Moscow time (12:22 a.m. GMT). In about nine minutes, the ship will separate from the third stage of the rocket, and in 50 hours it will reach the ISS. The docking of the cargo ship with the Poisk module is scheduled for November 23, 05:36 p.m. Moscow time (02:22 p.m. GMT).
This will be the fourth launch of the Progress MS ship this year, as well as the seventh launch of a rocket from the Baikonur spaceport.
New Year's gifts and scientific equipment
The cargo spaceship will deliver 2,487 tons of cargoes, including 869 kilograms of fuel in refueling system reservoirs, 420 kilograms of drinking water, and 43 kilograms of pressurized nitrogen. Apart from that, it will carry equipment and material for space experiments in the dry compartment, including for the Vampire experiments (growing crystals in an electric vacuum furnace), BTN-Neutron-2 (studying the neutron spectrum), 3D printing (three-dimensional printing from polymers) and more.
As Andrey Vedernikov, head of the space food department at the Research Institute of Food Concentrates Industry and Special Food Technology, told TASS earlier, the Progress MS-29 cargo spaceship will carry dried venison and horse meat, canned fish, meat and vegetables, horseradish, adjika and mustard, soups, cottage cheese, porridge, coffee, cocoa, tea drinks, as well as fresh fruits and sweets for the cosmonauts. According to cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, the spaceship will also deliver New Year's gifts to the station.