An automatic Russian supply ship carrying tons of supplies successfully blasted off Friday heading for the International Space Station.

The Progress MS-13 cargo ship lifted off as scheduled at 2:34 p.m. (0934 GMT) atop a Soyuz rocket from the Russian space complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

It successfully entered a designated preliminary orbit and is set to dock with the space outpost on Monday.

The Progress is carrying about 3 tons (2.7 metric tons) of food, fuel and supplies to the space station, which currently has six astronauts aboard—NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan, Jessica Meir and Christina Koch; Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency; and Russia's Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Skripochka.

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