The modified Ariane launcher took off at 1.34 a.m. (0434 GMT) from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) launch center in Kourou, French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America carrying a 20-metric ton cargo vessel.
The vessel was carrying more than six tons of cargo.
American space shuttles had previously been the main supplier of cargo to the ISS but a final 12-day mission of the Atlantis shuttle last July ended the 30-year shuttle program.
Europe’s ATV fleet is now key to keeping the ISS in supplies.
Over an hour after launch the Edoardo Amaldi Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), named after the 20th century Italian physicist and spaceflight pioneer, separated from the Ariane rocket. It is scheduled to dock with the space station on March 28.
Built by an industrial consortium led by EADS ASTRIUM, a division of European industrial giant EADS, the unmanned vessel is designed to deliver fuel, food, clothing and oxygen to the ISS crew as well as spare parts.
It is the third ATV Europe has contributed to the ISS program. The first docked with the space station in early 2008. A second docked early last year.
The ATV will remain attached to the space station until August as astronauts remove its cargo and fill it with rubbish from the station.
It will then be thrust back toward earth, burning up on re-entry. Any remaining debris will be targeted to a remote area of the Pacific Ocean.
Russia’s Progress vessels have less than half the cargo capacity of Europe’s ATVs.
American start-up SpaceX - brainchild of PayPal co-founder Elon Musk - has scheduled its first supply mission to the ISS aboard its Dragon spacecraft in late April.
The space station, which is about 90 percent complete, is a $150 billion project of 15 nations.