Russian cargo spaceship docks with ISS

MOSCOW, July 29 (Xinhua) -- A Russian space freighter successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, said the Mission Control outside Moscow.

The Progress M-67 space freighter docked to the "Zvezda" service module of the ISS in manual mode at 15:12 p.m. Moscow time (1112 GMT), said Valery Lyndin, spokesman for the Mission Control.

The flight director gave an order to the ISS commander Gennady Padalka to switch from the automatic control mode to the manual mode due to failures in telemetry, said the Itar-Tass news agency.

The switch occurred when the spaceship was about 169m away from the ISS.

The cargo spaceship, launched on July 24 from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, delivered 2.5 tons of supplies to the station, including food, water, fuel, equipment, and letters and gifts from relatives of the current ISS crew.

Progress M-67 was "the final series of the old ship," while the first two Russian spaceships of new series, Progress M-01M and Progress M-02M, have already passed the test, said the Itar-Tass.