Russian Progress freighter docks manually with ISS

Russia's Progress M-05M space freighter docked with the International Space Station (ISS) manually late on Saturday night, a spokesman for the Russian Mission Control Center said.

The Progress M-05M freighter lifted off on a Soyuz-U rocket on April 28 from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.

"Russian astronaut Oleg Kotov docked the spacecraft with the ISS manually at 22.30 Moscow time [18.30 GMT, Saturday]," the spokesman said.

The spacecraft has delivered over 2.5 tons of supplies, including equipment, parcels from home, chocolate, candy, new video films and books.

Progress-series freighters have been the backbone of the Russian space cargo fleet for decades. In addition to their main mission as cargo spacecraft, they are used to adjust the ISS orbit and conduct scientific experiments.

Russia "buried" its last analog - as opposed to digitally controlled - space freighter, the Progress M-67, in the Pacific in September.

MOSCOW, May 2 (RIA Novosti)