MOSCOW, October 30 (RIA Novosti) – A Soyuz-U carrier rocket with a Progress M-13M cargo spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan to deliver supplies to the International Space Station, Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said on Sunday.
“The launch took place at the designated time – 14:11 Moscow time (11:11 a.m. GMT),” Roscosmos said in a statement.
The Progress space freighter will deliver food supplies to the world orbiter’s crew and a small satellite, Chibis-M, to study lightnings and thunderstorms in the Earth’s atmosphere, Roscosmos said.
At 14:20 Moscow time, the Progress M-13M space freighter separated from the third stage of the Soyuz-U carrier rocket, Roscosmos said.
The previous space freighter Progress M-12M, which was intended to deliver supplies to the world orbiter, was lost on August 24 and fell in south Siberia after failing to separate from the Soyuz-U booster as a result of a rocket engine failure.
The crew of the International Space Station currently comprises NASA astronaut Michael Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa. They are expected to return to the Earth aboard a Soyuz carrier rocket on November 22.