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Russia’s Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Progress MS-12 space freighter blasts off from Baikonur

The carrier rocket blasted off from the 31st launch pad at the Baikonur spaceport at 3:10 p.m.

Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with Progress MS-12 resupply ship Energia Rocket and Space Corporation/Roscosmos

Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with Progress MS-12 resupply ship

© Energia Rocket and Space Corporation/Roscosmos

KOROLYOV /Moscow Region/, July 31. /TASS/. A Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-12 resupply ship blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station (ISS), Russia’s Flight Control Center reported on Wednesday.

"The carrier rocket was launched in a normal regime," the Flight Control Center said.

The carrier rocket blasted off from the 31st launch pad at the Baikonur spaceport at 3:10 p.m. Moscow time, the Center specified.

The rocket will fire its engines for about nine minutes, after which the space freighter will detach from the carrier’s third stage at 3:19 p.m. Moscow time.

The Progress resupply ship will approach the International Space Station using a two-loop scheme lasting 3 hours and 25 minutes. The space freighter will dock to the Pirs docking module at 6:35 p.m. in the automated mode under the control of specialists of the Flight Control Center and the space station’s Russian crew.

The resupply ship is due to deliver 1.2 tonnes of dry cargoes, over a tonne of fuel, 420 kg of water, and also 50 kg of compressed gas in containers. The spacecraft’s cargo compartment holds scientific equipment, components for the life support system, and also containers with foodstuffs, clothing, medications and personal hygiene items.

Currently, Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Alexander Skvortsov, NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Christina Kock and Andrew Morgan and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano are staying on the space station.

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The Collective Security Treaty came into force on April 20, 1994 to herald the emergence what would eventually become the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The six member-countries are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan

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