Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

A Progress supply craft loaded with 3.1 tons of cargo lifted off Thursday from Kazakhstan, launching on a six-hour pursuit of the International Space Station culminating with a smooth docking to the research lab’s aft port.

A normally reliable Soyuz FG rocket malfunctioned two minutes after liftoff from Kazakhstan Thursday, forcing a Russian cosmonaut and his NASA crewmate to execute an emergency abort and a steep-but-safe return to Earth a few hundred miles from the launch site. Russian recovery crews reported the crew came through the ordeal in good shape.

A day-and-a-half before its liftoff with a U.S. Air Force communications satellite, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket rolled out to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral on Monday morning.