A new laboratory will join the International Space Station on Wednesday as the Proton-M launch vehicle is taken to a human site 400 kilometers from Earth.
The spacecraft will take off from the Russian Bikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The Russian laboratory unit Navoka (Science), which was scheduled to launch into space in 2007, is on board. Problems repeatedly led to delays in launches. The journey to the International Space Station will take eight days.
As a multi-purpose unit, the “Novaka” unit is primarily intended for research, and will dock with the Russian part of the station, according to the Russian space station “Roscosmos”, which expects Russian astronauts to complete several field space missions.
Launch of the new laboratory rocket to the International Space Station
