A Progress cargo spacecraft has arrived at the space station

A Russian cargo spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday with fresh food, water and other essential supplies on board. The Russian space agency reports a smooth rendezvous between the unmanned spacecraft and the manned outpost

The Russian cargo spacecraft Progress 29, which was launched on Wednesday from Baikonur, successfully docked in the station's Zarya component on Saturday at 00:39 Israel time when both spacecraft were at an altitude of 346 km above the Atlantic Ocean, near the coast of Brazil. On board the Progress 2.1 tons of cargo.

"Everything went successfully" said the station's 17th team commander Sergey Volkov. Apart from Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and the American Garrett Raisman are now staying at the station.

The cargo of Progress is divided between 350 kg of rocket fuel, about 45 kg of oxygen and air, and 1,292 kg of dry cargo, including 258 kg of food, 126 kg of medicine and 128 kg Hygiene products. In addition, the cargo also includes a package with 90 snails intended for an experiment examining the effect of zero gravity on living creatures.

Progress 29 was supposed to dock at the Pierce Air Administration, but it is currently occupied by the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft with which the two members of the current crew from the Russian Space Agency arrived at the station and will return with it at the end of their mission, and it is also supposed to be used as an escape spacecraft in case of an emergency. The crew members were supposed to copy the Soyuz from its place to one of the other hatches but after the incident in which the Soyuz spacecraft that returned the previous crew It veered off course and made an emergency landing on Earth, it was decided to avoid moving the Soyuz spacecraft as much as possible.