Soyuz-U, cargo space ship Progress М-64 launched from Baikonur

Baikonur. May 15. Kazakhstan Today - The rocket Soyuz-U and cargo space ship Progress М-64 were successfully launched from Baikonur on Wednesday, the agency reports referring to a source at the cosmodrome.

The launch of the carrier rocket was executed at 02.22 Astana time (00.22 Moscow time) from launcher №5 of the starting complex of platform №1 and took place in a regular mode.

According to flight cyclogram cargo space ship Progress М-64 separated from the third step of the carrier rocket and was launched to the orbit with the set parameters. Docking of the cargo ship Progress М-64 with the International Space Station (ISS) is planned for May 17 at 01.37 Moscow time.

It has been the second of five launches planned in 2008 cargo Progress ships to ISS.

The cargo space ship Progress М-64 will deliver to the ISS about 2.5 tons of cargo: 420 kg of water in tanks Spring, 50 kg of air and oxygen in cylinders, 1.23 tons of fuel for maintenance of the orbit of the station, 258 kg of foodstuffs, 126 kg of medicine, 128 kg of sanitary-and-hygiene aids, scientific equipment, space suit Falcon КВ-2, materials for crew of the cosmonauts of the 17th expedition launched to ISS on April 8.

Besides basic cargoes, 90 Georgian snails will be delivered in special containers to ISS to carry out experiments on study of influence of weightlessness to vestibular apparatus and regeneration of tissue cells.

It has already been the seventh expedition of "space snails" to ISS that have undergone within three years the experiments by the Institute of Biomedical Problems at the Russian Academy of Science.

Snails will stay in space for almost half a year and will come back to the Earth along with the Russian cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Oleg Kononenko working now at the station.

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