Progress M-51, identified by NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 as Progress 16 or 16P, was a Progress spacecraft used to resupply the International Space Station

International Space Station

The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

. It was a Progress-M

Progress-M

Progress-M , 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, originally built in the late 1980s as a modernised version of the Progress 7K-TG spacecraft, using new systems developed for...

 11F615A55 spacecraft, with the serial number

Serial number

A serial number is a unique number assigned for identification which varies from its successor or predecessor by a fixed discrete integer value...

 351.

Progress M-51 was launched by a Soyuz-U

Soyuz-U

The Soyuz-U launch vehicle is an improved version of the original Soyuz LV. Soyuz-U is part of the R-7 family of rockets based on the R-7 Semyorka missile. Members of this rocket family were designed by the TsSKB design bureau and constructed at the Progress Factory in Samara, Russia....

 carrier rocket from Site 1/5

Gagarin's Start

Gagarin's Start is a launch site at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, used for the Soviet space program and now managed by the Russian Federal Space Agency....

 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome

Baikonur Cosmodrome

The Baikonur Cosmodrome , also called Tyuratam, is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about east of the Aral Sea, north of the Syr Darya river, near Tyuratam railway station, at 90 meters above sea level...

. Launch occurred at 22:19:34 GMT on 23 December 2004. The spacecraft docked with the Aft port of the Zvezda module at 23:57:45 GMT on 25 December. It remained docked for two months before undocking at 16:06:30 GMT on 27 February 2005 to make way for Progress M-52

Progress M-52

Progress M-52, identified by NASA as Progress 17 or 17P, was a Progress spacecraft used to resupply the International Space Station. It was a Progress-M 11F615A55 spacecraft, with the serial number 352....

. Between undocking and deorbit, Progress M-51 was used for a series of tests. It was deorbited at 16:17:00 GMT on 9 March 2005. The spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

, with any remaining debris landing in the ocean at around 17:03:11 GMT.

Progress M-51 carried supplies to the International Space Station, including food, water and oxygen for the crew and equipment for conducting scientific research.