Russian cargo ship blasts off to international space station

An unmanned Russian cargo ship blasted off today for the international space station to deliver supplies and equipment to its three-man crew, space officials said.

The Progress M-59 lifted off atop a Soyuz-U booster rocket at 5.12am local time (1.12am Irish time) from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and entered orbit about nine minutes later, said Nikolai Kryuchkov, a spokesman for the Federal Space Agency.