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Russian cargo spacecraft docks to ISS

The new Progress spacecraft has delivered to the ISS more than 2 tons of cargo, including fuel, air, food items and equipment for the station maintenance

KOROLEV (Moscow region), July 19. /TASS/. Russia’s cargo spacecraft Progress MS-03 has automatically docked to the Pirs module of the International Space Station (ISS), the Mission Control Center (MCC) outside Moscow told TASS on Tuesday.

"The cargo ship’s docking passed normally", MCC said.

Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Anatoly Ivanishin controlled the rendezvous process and were ready to take over the control, if necessary.

The new Progress spacecraft has delivered to the ISS more than 2 tons of cargo, including fuel, air, food items and equipment for the station maintenance, the crew life support means, as well as parcels for cosmonauts and astronauts. There are several kilograms of apples and grapefruit among the supplies, as well as cranberries, fresh salad and borsch soup that were requested by the cosmonauts in addition to the usual rations, the Research Institute of the Food Concentrate Industry and Special Food Technology, which prepares food for astronauts, told TASS.

In addition to Ovchinin and Ivanishin, the station’s crew currently comprises Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, American astronauts Jeffrey Williams and Kathleen Rubins and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi.

The US commercial cargo ship Dragon will be docked to the US module Harmony of the ISS on Wednesday. According to NASA, the ISS Expedition 48 crew will now prepare for the second of two back-to-back cargo deliveries with the arrival of SpaceX’s ninth commercial resupply services mission for NASA on Wednesday, July 20. Dragon is on its way to the station with nearly 5,000 pounds of supplies and science investigations.

The Previous new-generation cargo ship Progress MS-02 was launched into orbit on March 31. The next spacecraft of the series, the Progress MS-04, is planned to be launched to the ISS on October 20.

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