Loaded with more than 7 tons of propellant, food, supplies and experiment hardware, the European Space Agency's "Edoardo Amaldi" Automated Transfer Vehicle cargo craft launched on an Ariane 5 rocket in the pre-dawn hours March 23, 2012 from the Arianespace launch site in the jungle of northern French Guiana bound for the International Space Station. The "Edoardo Amaldi", named after the 20th century Italian physicist, is the third in the series of European resupply vehicles for the crews on the orbital laboratory. It is scheduled to dock automatically to the aft port of the Russian Zvezda Service Module on March 28.

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