Russian Cargo Spaceship Docks With Space Station

Cape Canaveral, FL (AHN) - A Russian cargo spaceship filled with fresh food, water and other vital supplies has docked with the International Space Station (ISS), mission control near Moscow said Friday.

The unmanned Progress M-14 spaceship, which blasted off from central Asia's Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan Thursday, docked with the station at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT) as both spacecraft flew 215 miles above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Brazil.

The cargo spaceship delivered some 2.5 tons of food, water, fuel, equipment and gifts from the crews' families to Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko and NASA astronaut Garrett E. Reisman.

Space.com reported that Volkov, Kononenko and flight engineer Garrett Reisman of NASA were expected to open the hatches separating the station and its new cargo ship Friday night. They will begin unloading spacecraft's 4,657 pounds of supplies on Saturday, NASA officials said.

The spaceship, an unmanned version of the Soyuz spacecraft, is expected to be filled with waste and trash during its way back to Earth after undocking.

The spaceship also carried a batch of 90 snails as part of an experiment that studies the effects of weightlessness on living organisms, Russia's Interfax News Agency reported.