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Progress space freighter to bring food and other cargo to ISS

It will be the second Progress-MS launch in 2023 and the fourth launch from Baikonur

MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/. Russia’s Progress MS-23 space freighter will blast off atop a Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on Wednesday to deliver almost 2.5 metric tons of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).

The launch of the cargo spacecraft is scheduled to take place at 3:56 p.m. Moscow time from Launch Pad 31 (Vostok) of the Baikonur space center. Approximately nine minutes later, the spacecraft will reach the orbit. Its flight to the ISS is expected to take around three hours and 25 minutes. Docking with the Poisk module of the ISS is scheduled for 7:21 p.m. on Wednesday.

It will be the second Progress-MS launch in 2023 and the fourth launch from Baikonur. The Soyuz-2.1a rocket is adorned with emblems dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the city of Perm and the 60th anniversary of the flight of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.

Presents and food

The space freighter will carry 2,491 kilograms of cargo, including 499 kilograms of fuel for the station, 630 liters of potable water, 40 kg of compressed liquid nitrogen. It will also bring to the space station around 1,322 kilograms of miscellaneous equipment and items, including medical and sanitary items and clothes.

The Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences has said the cargo spacecraft will bring food for Russian cosmonauts at the station. The crew’s menu will be replenished with vegetable and other soups, as well as freeze-dried side dishes: buckwheat and rice meal, pasta with mushrooms, omelets, vegetable stew, salads and cottage cheese. Traditionally, the crew’s diet will include canned food, drinks, fruit concentrates, candy and bread, including honey cakes, which cosmonauts have repeatedly used as the main ingredient for making improvised deserts on board the station.

Earlier, the psychological support service told TASS that Progress MS-23 will also deliver a gift to the station for the agency's special correspondent, Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin, who will celebrate his 40th birthday on July 10. The service did not specify what gift the cosmonaut will get so as not to spoil the surprise.

The Progress MS is a Russian unmanned spacecraft that was created specifically for servicing orbital stations. It is used to deliver various cargoes (fuel, scientific equipment, oxygen, water, food, etc.) to the ISS, as well as to perform orbit adjustment maneuvers.

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