Fresh Cargo Ship Docks at International Space Station

The ISS Progress 25 spacecraft approaches the International Space Station to dock at the aft end of the outpost's Zvezda service module on May 15, 2007. CREDIT: NASA TV.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station welcomed the arrival of a fresh cargo ship early Tuesday after a flawless automated docking by the incoming spacecraft.

The Russian-built Progress 25 supply ship arrived right on time at 1:10 a.m. EDT (0510 GMT), guiding itself to a berth at the aft end of the station's Zvezda service module as both spacecraft passed 220 miles (354 kilometers) above the northeast coast of Australia, NASA officials said.

"Congratulations on a successful docking," Russian ISS flight controllers told the station's three-astronaut Expedition 15 crew.

Inside the orbital laboratory, Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin stood at the ready to take remote control of the arriving cargo ship should its autonomous docking plan encounter a glitch. But the spacecraft remained on target after a three-day spaceflight that began with a late Friday launch (Eastern Time) from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Progress 25 is laden with more than 2.5 tons of fresh supplies for the ISS crew. Tucked among that 5,125 pounds (2,324 kilograms) of cargo are about 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of air, 925 pounds (419 kilograms) of water, and 3,042 pounds (1,379 kilograms) of dry supplies that range from new equipment and spare parts to clothing for NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson, an Expedition 15 crewmember slated to launch towards the ISS aboard a NASA shuttle next month, the space agency said.

Russia's Interfax News Agency reported that a batch of 50 snails were also riding to the ISS aboard Progress 25 as part of a Russian Federal Space Agency experiment to study tissue regeneration in microgravity.

Yurchikhin and Expedition 15 flight engineers Oleg Kotov and Sunita Williams are slated to begin unloading the new cargo ship at about 6:00 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT), NASA said.

Progress 25's successful Tuesday docking brings raises the station's total number of visiting spacecraft to three. The unmanned Progress 24 cargo ship remains moored to the station's Pirs docking compartment while the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft that ferried Yurchikhin and Kotov to the ISS last month is docked at an Earth-facing port on the orbital laboratory's Russian-built Zarya control module.

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