The operation was carried out with the help of the Progress cargo vessel, which has docked at the space station, two weeks before a Soyuz spaceship is to bring a US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut to the ISS.

The ISS was raised to an orbit of some five kilometers (three miles) above earth -- a procedure that is regularly required to counter Earth's gravitational pull.

The April 26 mission is the first time a Russian Soyuz capsule will fly a new team to the ISS, following the February 1 Columbia space shuttle disaster and the grounding of the remaining three space shuttles.

SPACE.WIRE