This Week in Launch: Russia to launch next ISS supply mission

We have a total for four launches this week currently on the schedule, we’ll see if that changes. Two of those are from SpaceX and shocking, even myself, neither are for the company’s Starlink constellation. The headliner this week will be Russia‘s Progress MS-28 resupply mission to the ISS on Wednesday.

This week’s launches

• August 14 (Wednesday)
  • Roscosmos | Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-28 | 11:20 P.M. ET
    • Site 31/6, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
  • ISRO | SSLV | EOS-08 | 11:47 P.M. ET
    • First Launch Pad, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India
• August 15 (Thursday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | WorldView 3 & 4 | 9:00 A.M. ET
    • SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
• August 16 (Friday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Transporter 11 | 11:19 A.M. PT
    • SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California

What’s going up to the ISS?

As part of its participation in the International Space Station program, Russia provides cargo services using its Progress spacecraft. The design of the spacecraft is similar to the nation’s Soyuz spacecraft but does not feature the ability to survive reentry of Earth’s atmosphere.

On board will be over two and a half tons of supplies including food, science experiments, clothing, and other equipment for use on the station. Primarily the science experiments are for the Russian side of the space station and we don’t have many details on what they are.

The MS-28 Progress spacecraft is currently vertical at its launch site in Kazakhstan as of this morning. Meanwhile, its MS-26 counterpart is still docked to the Zvenda module in space. Tomorrow, Roscosmos plans to command it to undock with the station and later deorbit and burn up on reentry.

Since this mission is heading to the ISS, NASA usually provides some sort of coverage of the launch. The agency has yet to announce its plans but expect it anywhere NASA TV is provided, until its discontinued, but for certain it will be on NASA+, the agency’s streaming service.