Russia's Progress MS-26 Cargo Spacecraft Docks to International Space Station

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Progress MS-26 cargo spacecraft on Saturday docked to Russia's Zvezda service module of the International Space Station (ISS), according to a live broadcast by Russian state space corporation Roscosmos.

The spacecraft was launched on the Soyuz 2.1a rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 06:25 a.m. Moscow time (03:25 GMT) on Thursday.

Progress MS-26 delivered to the station more than 2.5 tonnes of cargo, including nearly 1.5 tonnes worth of hardware and equipment for the station's systems and scientific experiments, clothing, food, medical and sanitary supplies for the ISS crew, 580 kilograms (1,278 pounds) of fuel, 420 kilograms of drinking water and 40 kilograms of nitrogen.

The cargo spacecraft also carried consumables for the new scientific experiment dubbed "Fullerene" to grow fullerite crystals in the Nauka module — the third crystalline form of carbon, which is a new class of semiconductors, as well as equipment for the new scientific experiment Orbita-MG to create a monitoring system that will find cracks and other leaks in the station's hull.

The station crew consists of ISS Expedition 70 members — Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Oleg Kononenko and Konstantin Borisov, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.