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<\/p>\nFor the second time this month, the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, launched one of their crafts to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
Liftoff of the Progress MS-14 uncrewed cargo resupply mission to the orbital outpost launched from Site No. 31\/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, 24 April at 21:51:41 EDT \u2014 which was 01:51:41 UTC on Saturday, 25 April.<\/p>\n
The mission performed a super fast-track rendezvous with the Station culminating in an automated docking just 3 hours 21 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n
Unusually, Roscosmos has taken the rare step of giving this Soyuz rocket a name: \u201cVictory Rocket\u201d. <\/p>\n
The name is part of Russia\u2019s commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the decisive Soviet victory over Nazi and Axis Power forces at the end of World War II in May 1945.<\/p>\n
As such, Soyuz also carried special symbols commemorating the 75th anniversary of \u201cthe Soviet peoples victory in the Great Patriotic War,\u201d \u2014 as World War II was known contemporaneously within the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
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Soyuz with her \u201cVictory\u201d livery. (Credit: Roscomos)<\/p>\n
The mission is the first Russian resupply flight of the year to the Space Station.<\/p>\n
After undergoing pre-launch, stand-alone processing, Progress MS-14 was encapsulated within its payload fairing on 18 April and shipped two days later to its integration facility \u2014 where it was mated to the Blok-I second stage of its Soyuz 2.1a carrier rocket.<\/p>\n
Aerospace & Defense (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n Once mated, the third stage was attached to the top of Soyuz 2.1a\u2019s Blok-A core stage, completing rocket integration activities on 21 April.<\/p>\n The entire rocket stack was then rolled out to Site No. 31\/6 at Baikonur via train on 22 April for final pre-launch processing.<\/p>\n Overall, this was the 103rd flight of the Soyuz 2 rocket and the 45th flight of the 2.1a variant. <\/p>\n The Soyuz 2.1a began flying on 8 November 2004 and was last used just two weeks ago to launch three crew members to the International Space Station \u2014 the first time this rocket variant flew with people aboard.<\/p>\n At the time of today\u2019s single-second, instantaneous launch window at 01:51:41 UTC, the International Space Station was 506 km west-southwest of Baikonur.<\/p>\n Location of the International Space Station at the exact second of the planned launch of Progress MS-14. (Credit: GoISSWartch App)<\/p>\n The flight path \u2014 or azimuth \u2014 took the Soyuz rocket on an east-northeast trajectory out of Baikonur, ensuring Soyuz and Progress did not overfly any country except Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation during powered ascent. <\/p>\n The goal is to specifically avoid powered-flight land overflight of Mongolia and China \u2014 which is what gives the International Space Station its 51.6\u00b0 orbital inclination.<\/p>\n After an 8 minute 46 second ascent, the Soyuz finished its launch program and Progress separated from the Blok-I upper stage of the Soyuz 2.1a rocket.<\/p>\n For the super fast-track, 2 orbit rendezvous, the Soyuz rocket had to place the Progress MS-14 craft into a 193 \u00b12 km x 240 \u00b17 km orbit inclined 51.6\u00b0 to the equator.<\/p>\n Immediately following spacecraft separation, Progress deployed its solar arrays and communication antennas (as seen in below embedded tweet from the Soyuz MS-16 launch earlier this month) and transmit its orbital parameters and velocity data to the ground via the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/IMG_5802.png\")
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