Russia's Soyuz-U rocket successfully blasted off into space on July 16, sending a third Progress MS Spacecraft with supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).
The rocket lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:41 a.m. Moscow Time (21:41 GMT Saturday) to begin its two-day journey to the habitable satellite, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The MS spacecraft is loaded with more than 2.4 tonnes (5,291 pounds or 2,400 kilograms) of fuel, oxygen, air, equipment and food for the six-member crew on board the space station.
After it was launched into space, the Soyuz rocket began its routine short vertical ascent before making a sharp turn northeasterly to head toward the border between Russia and Kazakhstan.
The launch vehicle flew for approximately 2 minutes thanks to four strap-on boosters built with RD-117 engines and core stage fitted with an RD-118 engine. The boosters were then abandoned.
The core stage continued the rocket's flight for 3 minutes, and the phase of the mission was ended at just about 4 minutes and 47 seconds after liftoff as the core stage disengaged from the vehicle.
At 5 minutes into the launch, the payload fairing was discarded and then exposed the Progress MS cargo vehicle. At 8 minutes and 47 seconds, Progress MS was deployed into space.
The spacecraft is expected to arrive and dock at 03:22 a.m. Moscow Time (12:22 a.m. GMT) on Tuesday.
Previous Attempts With The Progress Spacecraft
In April 2015, Russia launched a Progress MS-02 spacecraft into space to deliver equipment and supplies to the ISS. But the space agency lost contact with it after it was launched. Efforts to save the spacecraft were unsuccessful.
The Progress capsule was expected to bring about three U.S. tons (6,104 pounds or 2,768 kilograms) of cargo to the space station, including 1,940 pounds of propellant, 926 pounds of water, 110 pounds of oxygen, as well as 3,128 pounds of hardware, supplies and spare parts for scientific experiments.
Although the exact technical glitch was not disclosed, NASA said the issue occurred after the Progress spacecraft separated from the third stage of the Soyuz rocket. The technical glitch prevented flight controllers from determining if the launch system of the capsule had deployed as planned.
A spokesperson from Russian mission control said that while the Progress spacecraft reached orbit, the full volume of data transmissions were not sent back to Earth.
After the incident in April 2015, there have been two successful dockings of Progress cargo ships.
Meanwhile, watch Saturday's launch below.
