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| | | | | | | Successful Progress launch paves the way for further scientific utilisation of the ISS by Europe
29 January 2004
| 29th of January, 2004. Baikonur Cosmodrome.
At 14 hours 58 minutes 8 seconds Moscow Time the Soyuz-U/Progress M1-11 Rocket-Space Complex was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome under the International Space Station (ISS) Mission Program and the Russian Side's commitments under the ISS Project.
Credits: RSC Energia | |  |  | |
| | | | | | | | | | The Matroschka mannequin was carried to ISS on board a Progress supply vehicle which was launched from Baikonur on 29 January 2004. Matroschka is an experimental facility, which will be placed on the outside of the Russian Zvezda module. It will be used to measure radiation levels experienced by astronauts in space. The facility has a human shape, consisting of a head and torso. It is made of natural bone and a synthetic material equivalent to human tissue. Sensors measuring radiation are placed at various key external and internal positions of the mannequin such as the areas of the stomach, lungs, kidney, colon and eyes. The facility will remain outside the ISS for a year. Matroshka is an ESA payload under the project leadership of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in Cologne. | | | | |
| | | | | Cooperation between Europe and Russia on the integration of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) with the International Space Station lasted more than a decade and culminated with a flawless docking of the first European cargo craft to the station’s Zvezda Service Module on 3 April 2008.
All Russian systems aboard the ATV (the Refueling System, Docking System, Equipment Control System, and KURS) demonstrated a stunning level of performance at all respective phases of the mission.
All major joint tasks, such as delivery of dry cargo to the ISS, water transfer, re-pressurization with oxygen, ISS re-boost with ATV thrusters, attitude control, and a debris avoidance manoeuvre, were fulfilled without a hitch.
The giant freighter destroyed itself in a controlled burn-up over the southern Pacific on 29 September 2009.
It is currently planned to launch an ATV every 17 months as part of ESA's ISS membership agreement to haul cargo, propellant, water and oxygen to the space station, and also to provide propulsion capacity at the station.
The ATV is 9.794m long, weighs 19.357 tonnes and has a total cargo capacity of 7.667 tonnes.
Credits: NASA | | | | |
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| | More information International Space StationATVESA's ISS utilisation websiteRKK EnergiaDLR: Matroshka - depth dose measurements in a human phantomOn Station: Matroshka
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