A Russian cargo ship docked at the International Space Station on Wednesday following a four-day delay after hurricane Ike forced evacuation of U.S. mission control in Texas last week, Reuters quoted Russian media as reporting. The Progress M-65 cargo ship successfully coupled with the multibillion-dollar orbit outpost at 2243 Moscow time (1843 GMT), local news agencies quoted officials from Mission Control in Korolyov, outside Moscow, as saying. The cargo ship, launched last Wednesday, ferried from earth some 2.5 tonnes of food, fuel, water, specimens for scientific experiments, a Russian-designed, fully computerized space suit and presents from friends and relatives for the crew of the space station. U.S. and Russian space officials decided last Friday not to take any risks and postponed the docking from the originally set date of Sept. 14 after U.S. space agency NASA evacuated its mission control in Houston as hurricane Ike approached. During the docking, the U.S. segment of the ISS was controlled from NASA's back-up facility in Huntsville, Alabama, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin as saying. The current U.S.-Russian trio manning the ISS are due to finish their six-month space odyssey in October.
