The supply ship "Progress" was launched on a Soyuz rocket at 9:47 local time (0647 GMT) on Tuesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Russian space officials told Interfax.

The rocket's cargo will be stowed on Mir in preparation for the arrival of three Russian cosmonauts, the flight control center said. A rocket carrying the cosmonauts is expected to blast off March 31.

The cargo, which was successfully placed in orbit, will reach Mir on Thursday, the ITAR-TASS news agency said.

The rocket is carrying two tonnes of fuel, water, spare parts, food and other equipment necessary for the cosmonauts' stay on Mir.

Progress is also equipped with a system to maintain atmospheric pressure inside Mir where there is still an unexplained air leak.

Progress is expected to dock on Mir using an automatic system, but cosmonauts Sergei Zaletin and Alexander Kaleri are ready to blast off on February 17 to dock the rocket manually if necessary.

The 28th mission on Mir will last fewer than 45 days, but if financing is found, it will be prolonged until August 2000 and a 29th mission will follow.

Russia has been teaming up with Western investors to give the ageing Mir space station a new lease on life.

Russia's Energia corporation has taken a majority stake in the newly-created MirCorp set up to attract 200 to 300 million dollars of investment over the next year for the project.

Venture capital outfit Gold and Appel has committed "in the 20s of millions of dollars" and will offer opportunities to the pharmaceutical industry, satellite repair and satellite manufacturing.

Firms interested in beaming live images to Earth for cable and the Internet could also be attracted by the project, as well as travel agents keen to attract a new generation of tourists known as citizen explorers at a cost of 20 and 40 million dollars.

Russia's cash-strapped space programme was forced to abandon Mir last year because it could not cover its operating costs and at the same time participate in the multi-nation International Space Station project.

The last cosmonauts to have lived on Mir were two Russians, Viktor Afanassiyev and Sergei Avdiyev, and the French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haignere, who ended their mission August 28.

SPACE TRAVEL
Capitalism Boosts Mir
Moscow (AFP) January 20, 2000
Russia is teaming up with Western investors to give the ageing Mir space station a new lease of life, with the dream of bringing corporate sponsorship, the Internet and tourism into the space age. Moscow approved Thursday a five-month mission to keep Mir -- which was to have been consigned to the cosmic scrap heap last August -- in orbit while Earthlings find the cash and the clients to make the bid commercially viable.