Space

Russian space freighter Progress moors with ISS - Mission Control

RIA Novosti

15/05/2007 10:44 MISSION CONTROL (Moscow Region) - A Russian supply vehicle has successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS), Russia's Mission Control said Tuesday.

The Progress M-60 freighter, launched on a Soyuz-U booster rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome Saturday, moored with the orbital station automatically at 05:10 GMT Tuesday morning, officials at Mission Control, outside Moscow, said.

The spacecraft delivered 2.5 tons of equipment and supplies to the ISS's current Russian-American crew, including Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov, and NASA astronaut Sunita Williams.

Yurchikhin and Kotov arrived at the ISS in April, along with American software billionaire and space tourist Charles Simonyi Williams, who came on board in December of last year, is winding up her mission this summer.

The head of Russian spacecraft manufacturer Energia, Nikolai Sevastyanov, said it had cost more than $64 million to ship the 2.5-ton cargo to the ISS, with the delivery of one kilogram of payload by a Progress freighter costing, on average, $22,000 to $25,000.

The next Progress launch is scheduled for August 6, he said.