A Russian booster Soyuz-U rocket has been successfully launched an unmanned cargo ship to the International Space Station (ISS). The crew is anxiously awaiting it after the successive failures of two previous supply missions. A Soyuz-U rocket blasted off flawlessly from Russia-leased Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan. The previous two launches, one in April 2015 and other in June 2015 ended in complete failure. The later was the US supply mission, which failed when SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket broke apart shortly after liftoff.

Despite the failures, NASA said the station is well-stocked, with enough supplies for the crew to last at least until October. However, the trouble-free launch was essential for the station program, which has exclusively relied on Russian spacecraft for ferrying crews after the grounding of the US shuttle fleet.

SpaceX still hopes to meet the target of launching astronauts from US soil again aboard the Falcon-Dragon combination in December 2017, which would allow NASA to stop buying seats from Russia to get astronauts to the space lab.