Russian supply ship docks with orbiting space station

An unmanned cargo ship has docked at the International Space Station to deliver nearly 3 tons of supplies, Russia's space agency said. The Progress 52 spacecraft docked smoothly with the orbiting station Saturday, shortly after being launched from Russia aboard a Soyuz rocket. "The docking was carried out in automated regime as scheduled," a spokesman for the space agency Roscosmos said. Russia's RIA Novosti news agency said the mission returned to the short 6-hour course to the space station. The previous supply mission took two days to rendezvous with the station. The cargo aboard Progress included food, fuel and scientific equipment as well as a repair kit for a space suit that malfunctioned during a July 16 space walk, Space.com said. The still-unidentified malfunction caused the helmet of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano to start filling up with water.