Baikonur starts preparations for February launch of Progress freighter

BAIKONUR. Oct 13 (Interfax-AVN) - The Progress M-66 space freighter is being unloaded from a train at the Baikonur spaceport.

"The space freighter was delivered from Korolyov in the Moscow region to the Tyura-Tam station on Sunday. The unloading is underway in an assembly-and-test compound of the 254th spaceport sector," a Baikonur source told Interfax.

He said the launch was due in February 2009.

Spaceport crews are also working on a new cargo spaceship, Progress M-01M, which will be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in the end of this November.

In contrast to the regular two-day flight to the ISS, the Progress M-01M will have four days of autonomous flight. The spaceship has a digital computing center and a small-size telemetric system. "That period [four days] will be used for testing the new systems," the source said.

"The parallel operation of old and new Progress spaceships will guarantee uninterrupted supplies to the ISS," he remarked.