- MOSCOW (AP) -- A supply ship blasted off Sunday on a mission to take
tons of cargo to the Mir space station, including a giant space mirror
designed to illuminate sun-starved northern cities.
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- The Progress cargo ship was launched
from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan on Sunday morning. The launch
had been delayed 10 days while the cash-strapped Russian government searched
for funds to buy a booster rocket.
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- The Progress is scheduled to dock with
the Mir on Tuesday morning, bringing fuel, food, water, New Year's gifts
and the experimental space mirror.
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- It also will bring several kits of scientific
equipment, including a Russian-French device to be installed on Mir's exterior
by cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev in a Nov. 11 spacewalk.
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- The device is designed to collect data
about meteorites when Mir flies through a meteorite cloud in mid-November.
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- The space mirror, called the Znamya,
or Banner, is expected to be unfurled in February, when Progress is jettisoned
from Mir.
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- The mirror, about 100 feet in diameter,
should reflect sunlight onto some of the chilly reaches of Russia during
the long nights.
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- However, officials say the mirror would
only be visible in good weather and to those who knew its precise position.
They said it would resemble a shooting star.
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- It is expected to serve as a prototype
for larger mirrors that might be sent up in the future.
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- The Progress launch, originally scheduled
for Oct. 15, was postponed because of funding problems that prevented the
space agency from buying the booster rocket, Soyuz-U, from its manufacturer.
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