MOSCOW, April 10. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia's Progress M-23M supply ship launched from the Baikonur spaceport on Wednesday, has successfully docked with the International Space Station in automated mode, a Mission Control Center official told Itar-Tass.

"The cargo spacecraft docked with the ISS at 01:20, Moscow time. "The docking was performed according to schedule," the official said adding that the maneuver was executed to a truncated six-hour plan.

The first launch under this plan (when a ship executes four orbit passes) was tested in August 2012 with Progress M-16M which was subsequently sunk in the Pacific Ocean. Until that time, all cargo vessels bound for the ISS had used a two-day rendezvous programme.

The docking maneuver was executed using the Kurs closing-in system.

The spacecraft delivered more than 2.5 tons of supplies to the ISS: fuel, food, water, oxygen, parcels and gifts for the crew, as well as research equipment.

Currently working in orbit are Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin, Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, American astronauts Richard Mastracchio and Steve Swanson, as well as Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.