MIAMI (Reuters) - An unmanned Russian spaceship carrying food, water,
fuel and Christmas goodies for two orbiting astronauts docked at the
International Space Station on Friday.
The Progress supply ship, which blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, arrived about eight minutes ahead of
schedule and hooked up to the research outpost at 2:46 p.m. EST (1946
GMT), NASA's mission control in Houston said.
The craft carried needed supplies to Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev
and U.S. astronaut William McArthur, who have been stationed in Earth's
orbit for nearly three months.
"Santa's sleigh has arrived," McArthur said. "Valery and I have really
been very good boys this year so we're certain there are going to be
lots of goodies on board for us."
NASA declined to reveal what the Christmas packages contained. But the
Itar-Tass news agency had earlier reported that the ISS crew would
receive a doll of Father Frost, a Russian analog of Santa Claus,
chocolates and DVD disks as their Christmas and New Year gifts.
Russia has been the primary carrier of supplies to the space station
since the U.S. space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas in
February 2003, killing the seven astronauts on board.
NASA grounded its fleet for more than two years and returned to flight
with the launch of shuttle Discovery in July.
But the U.S. space agency quickly grounded its shuttles again when
problems developed during the Discovery mission. The shuttle is not
expected to resume flights before May.
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