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Progress MS-04 cargo spaceship blasted off for ISS from Baikonur

The ship will be welcomed by the ISS crew of Russian cosmonauts, NASA astronauts Robert Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson, and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet

© Oleg Urusov/TASS

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/. A Soyuz-U carrier rocket with a Progress MS-04 spaceship has been blasted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan to deliver 2.5 tonnes of cargoes to the International Space Station, a spokesman for the mission control center told TASS on Thursday.

#ПрогрессМС04: есть запуск двигателя 3ей ступени и отделение 2ой ступени. pic.twitter.com/77NOYLpOFP
— РОСКОСМОС (@roscosmos) 1 December 2016

"The cargo spaceship is to separate from the carrier rocket at 18:01 Moscow time," the spokesman said, adding that the spacecraft is to dock to the International Space Station at 19:43 Moscow time on December 3.

L+285 seconds: #Soyuz rocket sheds its second stage as it carries #ProgressMS04 toward orbit: pic.twitter.com/7U2QXCFSSb
— Anatoly Zak (@RussianSpaceWeb) 1 December 2016

The ship will be welcomed by the ISS crew of Russian cosmonauts Andrei Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhykov, NASA astronauts Robert Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson, and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

According to the mission control center, the Progress MS-04 will deliver fuel, water and air to the ISS. Along with that, it is carrying research equipment and components, containers with food products, clothes, medicines and body care products. The cargoes also includes a Lada-2 greenhouse, a new-generation Orlan-MKS spacesuit for work in outer space, a system for regeneration of water from urine, etc.

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