Rocket Soyuz-U, cargo ship Progress М-61 placed on starting table

Baikonur. July 31. Kazakhstan Today - Today at 7.00 a.m. local time a carrier rocket Soyuz-U was taken out from assembly-test body of platform №112 where docking of the carrier rocket and head part of the rocket with cargo ship Progress М-61 has been carried out and transported to the starting complex of platform №1. At 10.30 a.m. the rocket was placed in vertical position on starting table, the press service explained.

The cosmodrome experts started the works according to the schedule of the first starting and are carrying out docking of ground and onboard equipment. After completion of docking works, the checks of the systems of the carrier rocket and the space ship will begin.

As it was informed earlier, the forthcoming launch is remarkable as it is devoted to the 150-year anniversary of the scientist and inventor K. E. Tsiolkovsky. In the honor of the founder of modern astronautics the poster of the scientist is fixed on the cargo ship.

The transport ship Progress М-61 is supposed to deliver equipment to onboard computers of the station and the basic cargo: foodstuffs, scientific equipment and fuel to the International Space Station.

The launch of the carrier rocket Soyuz-U with the cargo transport ship Progress М-61 from platform №1 of the cosmodrome has been scheduled for August 2 at 23.32 a.m. Astana time (21.32 Moscow time).

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