An unmanned Ariane rocket blasted-off from French Guiana early on Sunday in Europe's first mission to carry supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), space officials said.

The modified Ariane-5 launcher lifted-off at 1:03 a.m. (0403 GMT) from Europe's spaceport in Kourou on the northeast coast of South America with a 20 metric tonne cargo module on the top of the rocket.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.