Feb 17, 2005 — By Irene Klotz MELBOURNE, Fla. (Reuters) - A Russian cargo ship filled with extra food, water and equipment to repair and upgrade life support systems is being prepared for launch to the International Space Station, NASA officials said on Thursday.
The supplies will not only build up the reserves for the station's live-aboard crew, but help prepare the outpost in case it needs to serve as a temporary shelter for visiting space shuttle astronauts.
NASA plans to dispatch in May its first shuttle to the space station since the Feb. 1, 2003, Columbia accident grounded the remaining fleet.
A panel investigating the Columbia disaster determined that NASA should always have an option for rescuing astronauts whose ship is too damaged to return home. Columbia was holed in its left wing by a piece of falling foam insulation from the external fuel tank at liftoff and disintegrated on reentry, killing seven astronauts.
Among the items to be flown to the space station are 486 liters of water, 258 daily food rations, oxygen candles and spare parts for the station's toilet, said Mark Geyer, NASA's space station operations manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA also is flying two high-resolution digital cameras that the next space station crew will use to photograph the shuttle, said JSC spokeswoman Kylie Clem.
The images will be relayed to ground control teams so engineers can check for damage.
Ideally, NASA wants to be able to shelter a seven-member shuttle crew aboard the station for 33 days until another shuttle can be launched on a rescue mission.
The Russian cargo ship is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Feb. 28 and arrive at the space station on March 2.