Russia sends supply spacecraft to ISS

Russia sends supply spacecraft to ISS

MOSCOW, June 8 (Xinhua) — Russia on Sunday launched a cargo spacecraft bringing supply to the International Space Station (ISS) , announced the Mission Control outside Moscow.

The shuttle Progress M1-10 took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:34 p.m. Moscow time (1034 GMT) and is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Wednesday afternoon, Interfax news agency reported.

The spacecraft will deliver 2.3 tons of cargo, including water, fuel, food, oxygen and some equipment for scientific experiments, to the 7th ISS mission, which consists of Russia astronaut Yury Malenchenko and US cosmonaut Edward Lu.

Another supply vehicle, Progress M-48, will be sent to the ISS from the Baikonur cosmodrome in August.

The current Russian-American crew successfully arrived at the ISS on April 28 aboard a Russian Soyuz TMA-2 spacecraft. They will work in the space station till October.

Russian launches have become the only links to the 6-nation orbiting space station since the Columbia disaster on Feb. 1, which killed all seven crew members onboard and has grounded the US shuttle program.