OREANDA-NEWS. Roscosmos launched «the Progress MS-11» transport cargo ship from the Baikonur cosmodrome. The launch of the «Soyuz-2.1a» launch vehicle took place on April 4 at 14:01 Moscow time. Sending will take place on an ultrashort scheme, in which the spacecraft will make only two orbits around the Earth. 

According to the plan, it should fly to the ISS in 3 hours and 24 minutes after launch. Until this point, the record belongs to «the Progress MS-09», launched last July and flew to the space station in 3 hours and 39 minutes.

In addition to food, fuel, water and other standard products, Progress will deliver a dynamic lighting system to the ISS. It will imitate the light day from dusk to dawn as in central Russia in mid-May. It will be installed on the Rassvet module of the Russian station segment.

Earlier, Roscosmos showed a video about the most powerful rocket engine in the world. We are talking about the RD-171 MW, which is being created at NPO Energomash for the new medium-class launch vehicle «Soyuz-5 (Irtysh)» .

As noted on the record, published in the official Twitter of the corporation space activities, the engine will be 246 thousand horsepower. “With a mass of 10 tons, engine thrust will exceed 800 tons,” the video authors also say. The video emphasizes that the first RD-171 MB has already been created. Moreover, he passed 900 fire tests and in 2021 will be delivered to the customer. The first flight of «the Soyuz-5» rocket is scheduled for 2022.