An Automated Transfer Vehicle has been undocked from the International Space Station in order to accommodate the Russian Cargo craft, which is expected to enter ISS sometime later in the week.
The ESA's ATV-2 Johannes Kepler is shown docking at the International Space Station on Feb. 24. It delivered 7 tons of cargo, including experiments, fuel, water, food and other supplies. Now it is packed with trash and unneeded cargo that will be intentionally destroyed along with the vehicle when it re-enters Earth's atmosphere.
The Automated Transfer Vehicle-2 (ATV-2), called Johannes Kepler, has been undocked from the orbiting lab and would be destroyed along with the unneeded cargo while re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The ATV-2 has been on the ISS orbit for four months and has delivered seven tons of cargo, which consisted of fuel, water, food and other supplies. This is a second craft that the European Space Agency has built; it is cylindrical in shape having dimensions of 35 ft in length and 14.7 ft in width, weighing 22 t at the time of launch. Prior to being undocked, the vehicle fired its engines in order to promote the ISS to a higher orbit.
The Russian spaceship, which is set to be launched at the Kazakhstan's BaikonurCosmodrome on Tuesday is expected to dock at the ISS on Thursday. A six member team would be travelling in the aircraft, consisting of a commander, flight engineers and astronauts from leading space organisations in US, Japan and Russia. Apart from these two events, NASA is also preparing for the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, which would be going on a 12-day trip to ISS.