Stores on board the International Space Station can sustain a two-member crew until April 2004, leaving flexibility for Russia to de-lay a Progress resupply mission this month that was originally pushed up from January 2004 out of fear the station's water tanks would run dry. NASA ISS managers credited front-loading of water and other supplies in the wake of the Feb. 1 Columbia accident for lowering the impact of an apparent slip in the Russian schedule caused by a shortage of funds. ISS partnership talks were to be held at Johnson Space Center late last week on just when the next Progress will fly, but Mike Suf-fredini, station operations integration manager at JSC, said in advance of the meeting that supplies probably could last until the current crew―Expedition 8 ―is ready to come home in late April 2004.
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