Russian Supply Ship Docks with Space Station

A Russian Progress M31 unmanned cargo ship docked with the international space station minutes ago following a slight docking issue as it approached.

Progress 31 was to have automatically docked, however station flight engineer Yury Lonchakov had to manually guide the Progress 31 spacecraft to a 7:28 am EST docking while the pair flew high over eastern China.

During the next half hour, system latches in the docking port will hard dock the Progress. This will be followed by leak checks and hatch opening later this morning.

Russia normally sends up a new Progress to the station every six to eight weeks on average; and beginning next year, Japan will begin sending up their own supply vehicle for docking with the Kibo module.