KOROLYOV. March 31 (Interfax) - Russia's Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Progress MS-02 freight ship lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan) at 7:24 p.m. Moscow time, an Interfax correspondent reported from the Mission Control Center (MCC) on Thursday.
The estimated time of the Progress delivery to the target orbit is 7:32 p.m. Moscow time. After that, control over the spaceship's flight will be handed over to specialists at the MCC's main operations group in charge of the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS).
"The program of the freight ship's flight involves a two-day docking with the ISS in the 34th stage of the flight. The estimated time of the docking to the Zvezda Service Module of the Russian segment of the ISS is 9:01 p.m. Moscow time on April 2, 2016," the spokesperson said.
The docking will be done automatically, under the control of MCC specialists and the Russian members of the ISS crew, Yury Malenchenko and Alexei Ovchinin.
The freighter will deliver to the ISS over 2.5 tonnes of various supplies, including fuel, air, food, equipment to support life aboard the station, and parcels for the crew members.
Progress MS is an upgraded version of Progress M, designed by Rocket and Space Corporation Energia. The ship has a new command-telemetric system and a modified rendezvous system called Kurs-NA.