Progress M-3 (russian: Прогресс М-3, italic=yes) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

uncrewed cargo spacecraft which was launched in 1990 to resupply the

Mir ''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...

space station. The twentieth of sixty four

Progress Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension wi ...

flights to visit Mir, it was a

Progress-M Progress-M (russian: Прогресс-М, GRAU indices 11F615A55 and 11F615A60), also known as Progress 7K-TGM, is a Russian, previously Soviet spacecraft which is used to resupply space stations. It is a variant of the Progress spacecraft, or ...

11F615A55 spacecraft, and had the

serial number A serial number is a unique identifier assigned incrementally or sequentially to an item, to ''uniquely'' identify it. Serial numbers need not be strictly numerical. They may contain letters and other typographical symbols, or may consist enti ...

203. It carried supplies including food, water and oxygen for the EO-6 crew aboard Mir, as well as equipment for conducting scientific research, and fuel for adjusting the station's orbit and performing manoeuvres. Progress M-3 was launched at 23:10:57 GMT on 28 February 1990, atop a

Soyuz-U2 The Soyuz-U2 (GRAU index 11A511U2) was a Soviet Union, Soviet, later Russian, carrier rocket. It was derived from the Soyuz-U, and a member of the R-7 (rocket family), R-7 family of rockets. It featured increased performance compared with the b ...

carrier rocket flying from Site 1/5 at the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome ( kk, Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы, translit=Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy, ; russian: Космодром Байконур, translit=Kosmodrom Baykonur, ) is a spaceport in an area of southern Kazakhstan leased to R ...

. It docked with the aft port of the ''

Kvant-1 Kvant-1 (russian: Квант-1; English: Quantum-I/1) (37KE) was the first module to be attached in 1987 to the Mir Core Module, which formed the core of the Soviet space station ''Mir''. It remained attached to ''Mir'' until the entire space stati ...

'' module at 01:04:32 GMT on 3 March. During the 56 days for which it was docked with Mir, the station was in an orbit of around , with 51.6 degrees of

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

. Progress M-3 undocked at 20:24:43 GMT on 27 April to make way for

Progress 42 Progress 42 () was a Soviet unmanned Progress cargo spacecraft, which was launched in May 1990 to resupply the Mir space station. Launch Progress 42 launched on 5 May 1990 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh SSR. It used a Soyuz-U2 rocke ...

. It was deorbited at 00:00:00 GMT the next day. It burned up in the atmosphere over the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, with any remaining debris landing in the ocean at around 00:52 GMT.

References

1990 in the Soviet Union Progress (spacecraft) missions Spacecraft launched in 1990 {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

See also

References