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Russia launches spacecraft with Victory Banner copy to ISS

The nose cone of the Soyuz carrier rocket has the symbols of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War

© ITAR-TASS/Valery Sharifulin

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Progress M-27M cargo spacecraft with a replica of the Victory Banner aboard has been launched form the Baikonur cosmodrome (Kazakhstan) on Tuesday to the International Space Station (ISS), Russia’s Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) told TASS.

"In about nine minutes the spaceship will separate from the rocket," the agency said.

After that the cargo spacecraft will fly to the station. Its docking with the ISS is scheduled for 16:07 pm, Moscow time, Tuesday.

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Soviet flag replica to be unfolded at ISS to mark Victory Day

The nose cone of the Soyuz carrier rocket has the symbols of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet campaign against Nazi Germany, namely the Order of the Patriotic War and Saint George's Ribbon.

Several Saint George's Ribbons for the crew of the station have been sent to the ISS aboard the Progress spacecraft. This comes in preparation for the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of Victory.

The spacecraft is carrying around 2.5 tons various cargos for the orbital lab, including 420 kilograms of water, 50 kilograms of oxygen in balloons and 500 kilograms of fuel. The crew will also receive fruits, canned fish and herbs.

"The cargo ship will also bring apples, oranges, grapefruits, onion, greens and garlic. The crew has also asked for specialty ham, barbecue ketchup and Caucasian snacks," Alexander Agureyev, head of the department of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Medical-Biological Problems, which oversees the ISS food provision, told TASS earlier this month.

The current crew on board the ISS is made up of cosmonauts Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Korniyenko and Anton Shkaplerov from the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), astronauts Terry Virts and Scott Kelly from NASA and Samantha Cristoforetti from the European Space Agency (ESA).

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International Space Station: the innovative lab in Earth's orbit

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