Russia launches ISS-bound cargo ship

A Russian rocket carrying an unmanned cargo ship blasted off for the International Space Station early Sunday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Russian space agency said.

The Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress MS-03 ship was launched on schedule at 00:41 Moscow time (21:41 GMT Saturday) and began a two-day journey to the ISS, the Roscosmos space agency said on its website.

The ship is carrying more than 2.4 tonnes of fuel, air, oxygen, food and equipment for the crew on the international space laboratory.

It is due to dock at 03:22 Moscow time (00:22 GMT) on Tuesday.

A Progress cargo ship launch failed in April 2015. Since then there have been two successful dockings of such ships.

The ISS is currently manned by Kathleen Rubins of NASA, Takuya Onishi of the Japanese space agency, Jeff Williams of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka, Alexey Ovchinin and Anatoly Ivanishin.