On June 17, the spacecraft Progress M-53 will be launched with 2.5 tonnes of supplies on a Soyuz-U rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on Thursday, an agency spokesman told ITAR-TASS news agency.

Two astronauts, Russian Sergei Krikalev and American John Phillips, have been aboard the ISS since April 17.

Four days later, a military satellite Monia 3K will be put in orbit by a Molnia-M rocket from the Plessetsk launch site in north-west Russia.

On the same day another satellite will be launched on a Volna rocket fired from a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea in northern Russia.

On June 23, a telecommunications satellite express-AMS will be put in orbit by a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur.

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