Russian cargo spacecraft docks with ISS

A Russian cargo spacecraft docked with the International Space Station (ISS) Wednesday afternoon, Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said. The Progress M-17M freighter docked with the ISS at 17:40 Moscow time (1340 GMT) in automatic mode, just six hours after its launch from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, Roscosmos said. "The vehicle has docked with the Zvezda module (of the ISS) in an accelerated mode without a hitch," a Roscosmos spokesman told reporters. A live webcast showed the launch of the freighter, riding a Soyuz-U rocket, at 11:41 Moscow time (0741 GMT). The spaceship brought more than 2.5 tons of supplies, including fuel, oxygen, water, clothes, food and equipment, Roscosmos said. The mission was the last cargo delivery to the ISS this year and the second successful "speed dock" between a spaceship and the orbiting station. The first accelerated docking with the ISS was made by a Progress M-16M in August. Experts here said the same type of "fast docking" maneuver could be performed with a manned Soyuz spacecraft as early as March 2013, when a Soyuz TMA-08M mission to the ISS is scheduled. Currently, there are six crew members onboard the ISS: Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky, Yevgeny Tarelkin and Yury Malenchenko; NASA astronauts Kevin Ford and Sunita Williams; and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.