Russia launched its latest Progress cargo ship toward the International Space Station on Saturday (April 25).

A Soyuz rocket topped with the robotic Progress 95 freighter lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today at 6:21 p.m. EDT (2221 GMT; 3:21 a.m. on April 26 local time).

The Russian freighter, known as Progress 95, hauled about 3 tons of food, propellant and other supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).

Progress 95 docked with the orbiting lab on Monday (April 27) at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT on Tuesday, April 28) as planned.

Saturday's launch kicked off the second Progress mission of the year. Progress 94 lifted off from Baikonur on March 22 and reached the ISS two days later, overcoming the failed deployment of one of its docking antennas.

Progress 94 remains attached to the station. Progress 95 docked to the port previously occupied by Progress 93, which departed on April 20 to make room for the newcomer.

Progress 93 burned up in Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, the fate that awaits all Progress craft when their missions are over. That time will come for Progress 95 about seven months from now.

Progress is one of four cargo spacecraft that resupply the ISS these days, along with Japan's HTV-X, Northrop Grumman's Cygnus and SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

All are expendable except Dragon, which — like its astronaut-carrying counterpart, Crew Dragon — makes parachute-aided ocean splashdowns.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 6:30 p.m. ET on April 25 with news of successful liftoff, then again at 10:45 p.m. ET on April 27 with news of docking.

A Russian cargo spacecraft encountered a problem shortly after launching toward the International Space Station on Sunday morning (March 22), but it should be able to power through.

A Soyuz rocket topped with the robotic Progress 94 freighter lifted off from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sunday at 7:59 a.m. EDT (1159 GMT; 4:59 p.m. local Baikonur time).

The launch went well, but Progress 94 suffered an issue shortly after deploying from its rocket ride: One of the antennas it's supposed to use for automatic docking did not deploy, according to NASA.

"All other systems are operating as designed, and Progress will continue toward its planned docking at 9:34 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, March 22," agency officials said via X on Sunday. "Troubleshooting will continue and if the antenna cannot be deployed, Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov will manually pilot the spacecraft through a backup system for rendezvous and docking at the space station."

Progress 94 is carrying about 3 tons of food, propellant and other supplies to the astronauts currently living and working on board the International Space Station (ISS).

As NASA's update notes, the freighter is expected to dock with the station's Poisk module on Tuesday morning. Progress 94 will take the place of Progress 92, which undocked from Poisk on Monday (March 16).

You'll be able to watch Progress 94's arrival, with coverage beginning Tuesday at 8:45 a.m EDT (1245 GMT).

Progress 94 will spend about six months docked to the ISS. It will then be loaded up with trash and sent to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

Two other currently operational ISS cargo craft are similarly expendable — Japan's HTV-X and Cygnus, which is built by the aerospace company Northrop Grumman. The only reusable freighter is SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:45 a.m. ET on March 22 with news of launch and the antenna-deployment glitch.

The astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) just got a fresh shipment of supplies.

Russia's robotic Progress 93 spacecraft docked with the orbiting lab's Zvezda module at 1:23 p.m. EDT (1723 GMT) today (Sept. 13), two days after launching atop a Soyuz rocket from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The meetup occurred today as the two spacecraft were flying 260 miles (418 kilometers) over northeastern Kazakhstan.

Progress is loaded with 2.8 tons of food, fuel and other cargo for the astronauts of the ISS' current Expedition 73 mission, according to NASA officials.

The freighter will remain at the ISS for about six months, after which it will undock, head back down toward Earth and die a fiery death in our planet's atmosphere.

Progress 93 joins four other spacecraft at the ISS. Two of them are fellow freighters (another Progress and a robotic SpaceX Dragon capsule) and two are crew-carrying spacecraft (a Russian Soyuz and Endeavour, the Dragon that's flying SpaceX's Crew-11 astronaut mission for NASA).

And yet another vehicle will head up soon — Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch on Sunday (Sept. 14) and arrive at the ISS on Wednesday (Sept. 17).

There are seven people living aboard the ISS at the moment: Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke and Jonny Kim of NASA; Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); and Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

Ryzhikov commands Expedition 73. His six crewmates are all flight engineers.

A Russian Progress freighter launched toward the International Space Station today (Sept. 11) on a mission to deliver several tons of cargo for the station's astronaut crew.

A Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today at 11:54 a.m. EDT (1554 GMT; 8:54 p.m. local time in Kazakhstan), sending the robotic Progress 93 freighter into orbit.

Following a nominal liftoff, Soyuz jettisoned its side boosters 1 minute 58 seconds into flight. The rocket's primary booster burned for just under 3 more minutes and then performed a successful separation from the launch vehicle's upper stage, which completed the spacecraft's orbital insertion.

Progress 93 is slated to dock with the station's Zvezda service module, delivering 2.8 tons of food, propellant and other supplies to the astronauts of the current Expedition 73 mission on the ISS, according to a NASA update. Docking is scheduled to occur on Saturday (Sept. 13) at 1:27 p.m. EDT (1727 GMT).

A broadcast of the rendezvous will be available live; NASA's coverage of that event will begin at 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT) on Saturday.

Progress 93 will stay docked with the ISS for about six months. It will then depart loaded with astronaut trash, which will burn up, along with the freighter, in Earth's atmosphere.

Today's launch will be followed in relatively short order by that of another freighter — Northrup Grumman's Cygnus vehicle and the NG-23 mission, which will lift off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday (Sept. 14) at 6:11 p.m. EDT (2211 GMT). You can watch that when the time comes as well.

Like Progress, Cygnus is designed for one-time use. But the other currently operational ISS cargo craft, SpaceX's Dragon, is different: At the end of each mission, it splashes down in the ocean under parachutes for recovery and reuse.

A Russian cargo spacecraft launched toward the International Space Station (ISS) this afternoon (July 3), hauling several tons of cargo to the orbiting lab.

A Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today at 3:32 p.m. EDT (1932 GMT; 12:32 a.m. on July 4 local time in Kazakhstan), sending the uncrewed Progress 92 freighter aloft.

Progress 92 is hauling about three tons of food, fuel and other supplies to the ISS. If all goes according to plan, the robotic freighter will dock with the orbiting lab's Poisk module on Saturday (July 5) at 5:27 p.m. EDT (2127 GMT).

NASA will provide a livestream of rendezvous and docking activities via NASA+ beginning at 4:45 p.m. EDT (2045 GMT) on Saturday. Space.com will simulcast the stream if the agency makes it available.

Progress 92 will take the place of the Progress 90 vehicle, which undocked from the same Poisk port on Tuesday (July 1) after a roughly seven-month stay. Progress 90 will burn up in Earth's atmosphere shortly — the same fate that awaits Progress 92 about six months from now.

Progress 91, which launched on Feb. 27, remains at the station, docked to its Zvezda service module.

Progress is one of three cargo ships that ferry supplies to the ISS these days. The other two are private American vehicles: Northrup Grumman's Cygnus and SpaceX's Dragon.

Like Progress, Cygnus is designed for one-time use, ending its space stays with a fiery death dive. But Dragon is reusable and can therefore haul scientific samples and other materials from the ISS safely back down to Earth.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 3:50 p.m. ET on July 3 with news of successful launch.

Update: The Russian cargo ship Progress 70 successfully docked with the International Space Station at 9:31 p.m. EDT. Read our latest story here: Russian Cargo Ship Sets New Record for Fastest Trip to Space Station

A Russian Progress cargo spacecraft launched to the International Space Station (ISS) today (July 9) to deliver supplies to the crew of Expedition 56 in record time.

Packed with nearly 3 tons (2.7 metric tons) of food, fuel and other supplies, the uncrewed Progress cargo ship lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket at 5:51 p.m. EDT (2151 GMT; 3:51 a.m. July 10 local time).

"We have liftoff of the Progress resupply ship, heading into the express lane, bound for the International Space Station," NASA spokesman Rob Navias said during live commentary. 

The vessel, known as Progress 70 or Progress MS-09, is expected to arrive at the space station tonight at 9:39 p.m. EDT (0139 GMT on July 10), completing the trip in a record time of 3 hours and 48 minutes. "The less-than-4-hour trip will demonstrate an expedited capability that may be used on future Russian cargo and crew launches," NASA officials said in a statement. [How Russia's Progress Spaceships Work (Infographic)]

When it arrives at the ISS, the Progress spacecraft will dock at the Russian Pirs module. NASA TV will provide live coverage of the spacecraft's arrival and docking at the ISS, and you can watch it live here starting at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT).

After the spacecraft docks, the six crewmembers of Expedition 56 will spend the next few months unloading the cargo, which includes 1,170 lbs. (530 kilograms) of propellant, 115 lbs. (52 kg) of oxygen gas, 930 lbs. (420 kg) of water, and 3,450 lbs. (1,565 kg) of other "dry" cargo like food and other equipment, NASA public affairs officer Dan Huot told Space.com in an email.

The spacecraft will remain docked at the ISS until January 2019, NASA officials said in the statement. Usually, Progress capsules are sent away to burn up in Earth's atmosphere after ISS crewmembers stuff the vessels with waste. But when Progress 70 undocks from the ISS, it will take something else back home with it: the entire Pirs docking compartment.

Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, is getting rid of the 17-year-old module to make room for the new Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MDM), also known as Nauka, which has yet to launch to the ISS. The new module was originally scheduled to launch in 2007 but has suffered several delays over the last decade. It is currently scheduled to launch in August 2019, but that may be postponed again, to 2020, according to the Russian news agency Sputnik International.

Roscosmos first launched Progress cargo missions to the ISS in 2000; back then, it would take about two days for one of the spacecraft to chase down the orbiting lab after launch. However, the space agency found a way to reduce that travel time to just under 6 hours in 2013. With today's launch, Roscosmos aims to demonstrate that an even faster trip is feasible.

Today's launch marks the third attempt to send a Progress cargo ship to the ISS via this new fast track. Roscosmos first planned to launch the Progress 68 spacecraft on this 4-hour flight in October 2017, but a last-minute delay forced flight controllers to revert to the old two-day route due to the orbital mechanics involved in reaching the ISS.

The same thing happened with the Progress 69 cargo launch in February. Because the launch was aborted during the final moments of the countdown, the mission missed its chance to take the fast route to the ISS. Again, that Progress spacecraft flew with the old two-day flight profile instead.

But it seemed that fortune favored Progress 70.

"A perfect launch," Navias said of Progress 70's liftoff. "Third time was the charm."

Navias added that Roscosmos officials hope to fly several more superfast Progress flights to the space station before using the 2-orbit flight profile for crewed missions on the agency's Soyuz spacecraft.

Russia's Progress spacecraft are not the only vehicles that transport crew supplies and science gear to the ISS. The next cargo shipment is scheduled to arrive in September on a Japanese Kounotori spacecraft, also known as the H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV). That mission, HTV-7, will take about 4 hours to reach the ISS after launching from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center.

NASA doesn't have its own rockets or vehicles to use in sending cargo to the ISS. However, NASA has contracted private spaceflight companies to launch the agency's cargo shipments. Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems will launch a Cygnus cargo mission to the ISS for NASA in November, followed by a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft later that month. 

The European Space Agency has also launched cargo to the ISS with that agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle, the last of which flew in 2014. Another Progress cargo-delivery mission, Progress 71, is scheduled to launch in late October.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookand Google+. Original article on Space.com.