Russia is celebrating a late cosmonaut’s 100th birthday by lighting a huge “candle” and delivering “gifts” to his modern-day colleagues who have followed him into orbit.
The launch shroud encasing the uncrewed Progress MS-30 (or Progress 91, as NASA refers to it) resupply spacecraft has been decorated with a logo commemorating the centennial of Pavel Belyayev’s birth. The circular blue and white emblem depicts the cosmonaut, who in 1965 led the world’s first mission to perform a spacewalk. A similar emblem on another side of the same fairing commemorates the 60th anniversary of that extravehicular activity and Belyayev’s and Alexei Leonov’s historic flight on Voskhod 2.
The Progress ship is set to lift off atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from Site 31 at Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today (Feb. 27) at 4:24 p.m. EST (2124 GMT or 2:24 a.m. local time on Feb. 28). You can watch the action live here on Space.com and via NASA+, beginning at 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT).
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During the launch, the logo-adorned fairing will be jettisoned and discarded to fall back to Earth.
Related: How Russia’s Progress spaceships work (infographic)
After a two-day chase of the International Space Station, the Progress will autonomously dock to the aft port of the Zvezda service module at 6:03 p.m. EST (2303 GMT) on Saturday (March 1). The cosmonauts aboard the station, including Expedition 72 flight engineers Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Alexander Grebenkin, will then get to work unloading the spacecraft of its cargo and equipment.
Among the 5,730 pounds (2,599 kilograms) of deliveries aboard Progress MS-30 are clothing, food, medical and sanitary supplies for the station’s residents, as well as a new Orlan-MKS spacesuit of the type used today on Russian spacewalks (an upgrade to the Berkut spacesuit worn by Leonov for his 12-minute EVA on March 18, 1965).
Other hardware includes the materials to cultivate micro-algae as a potential food source; the tools to test how microorganisms affect different surfaces inside the orbiting laboratory; and the equipment to create advanced semiconductor crystals. The cosmonauts will also find biomedical tools to assess the effects of microgravity on blood circulation and immunity.
The Progress will also supply the station with 2,094 pounds (950 kilograms) of fuel, 926 pounds (420 kilograms) of drinking water and 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of nitrogen to replenish the on board atmosphere.
The Russian spacecraft will remain docked to the station for about six months as it is refilled with refuse and trash by the ISS crew. The Progress will then undock and be directed into a destructive reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, disposing of it and its refuse on board.
Belyayev was born on June 26, 1925, in what is today the Babushkinsky District of the Vologda region in northeast Russia. Almost rejected due to his age, he was the oldest cosmonaut to fly into space when he made his one and only spaceflight at 39.
Less than five years later, Belyayev died on Jan. 11, 1970, due to complications from surgery he had for stomach ulcers. His Voskhod 2 crewmate, Leonov, died in 2019 at the age of 85.
In addition to Belyayev’s 100th and the 60th anniversary of Voskhod 2, the Progress MS-30 fairing also displays emblems for the centennial of the Artek International Children’s Center and the launch of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh) forum campaign.
Progress MS-30 is the 91st Russian resupply craft to launch since 1998 in support of the International Space Station program and 183rd Progress flight since the first in 1978.
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