A new Progress cargo carrier launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday at 10:45 p.m. EST (9:45 a.m. Wednesday, Baikonur time).
FREE VIDEOS: WATCH VIDEO: SOYUZ PROGRESS-36 LAUNCH COVERAGE, PART 1 WATCH VIDEO: SOYUZ PROGRESS-36 LAUNCH COVERAGE, PART 2 The ISS Progress 36 unpiloted spacecraft brings to the International Space Station 1,940 pounds of propellant, 106 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 2,683 pounds of spare parts and supplies. On Thursday shortly before 11:30 p.m., the Progress will dock automatically to the aft port of the Zvezda service module using the Kurs docking system. Once Expedition 22 crew members have unloaded the cargo, ISS Progress 36 will be filled with trash and station discards. It will be undocked from the station and like its predecessors, deorbited to burn in the Earth's atmosphere. The Progress is similar in appearance and some design elements to the Soyuz spacecraft, which brings crew members to the station, serves as a lifeboat while they are there and returns them to Earth. The aft module, the instrumentation and propulsion module, is nearly identical. But the second of the three Progress sections is a refueling module, and the third, uppermost as the Progress sits on the launch pad, is a cargo module. On the Soyuz, the descent module, where the crew is seated on launch and which returns them to Earth, is the middle module and the third is called the orbital modul
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