Russian transportation logistics vehicle Progress M1-8
docked with the International Space Station (ISS) after
three days of free flight, rendezvous maneuvers, space station
fly-around, station-keeping and final approach.

Initial contact with the axial docking port on the Russian
Service module Zvezda occurred at 23:57:56 Moscow Time,
when the space station was within radio coverage of the
Russian ground tracking stations.

The vehicle delivered to ISS about 2.4 tons of cargoes,
including propellant for refueling the Russian segment of
the space station; equipment for re-supply and maintenance
of the space station systems; scientific equipment; food;
on-board documentation, parcels for the crew; equipment
in support of Italian and South-African research programs.

Transfer hatch to the vehicle was opened on March 25, 2002,
at 3:00.

The ISS-4 expedition crew – Russian cosmonaut Yuri Onufrienko
(Commander) and US astronauts Carl Walz and Daniel Bursch
(Flight engineers) are to transfer the delivered cargoes
and stow them on-board the space station, dismantle the
rendezvous system hardware from the vehicle in order to
return it to Earth for reuse, and stow inside the vehicle
the spent materials and hardware that are to be removed
from the station.

The vehicle rendezvous, fly-around, station-keeping, final
approach and docking were performed in automatic mode monitored
by the Lead Operatins Control Team (LOCT) at Mission Control
Center near Moscow (MCC-M) and ISS-4 crew.

Present at MCC-M during the vehicle docking with ISS were
the Technical Director of Russian manned space programs,
S.P.Korolev RSC Energia Designer General, academician of
the Russian Academy of Sciences Yu.P.Semenov, NASA representatives,
specialists from RSC Energia and its subcontractors.

At present, the ISS vehicle with the mass of 137.4 tons
consists of the functional cargo module Zarya, service module
Zvezda, docking compartment/module Pirs, manned vehicle
Soyuz TM-33, logistics vehicle Progress M1-8, as well as
Unity and Destiny modules, and Quest airlock.

On-board systems of the space station operate within design
limits.

The space station mission is controlled from MCC-M (Korolev,
Moscow region) in cooperation with the US Mission Control
MCC-H (Houston, USA). The Flight Director is cosmonaut V.A.Soloviev.

The space station flies in a low-Earth orbit with the maximum
altitude of 407.3 km, minimal altitude of 389.8 km, and
orbital period of 92.3 min.