Watch Russia's Soyuz Rocket Launch Crucial Cargo to the International Space Station

Russia has blasted thousands of pounds of cargo and crucial supplies to the International Space Station, and NASA has released a video of the launch.

The cargo was launched aboard a Soyuz 2.1a rocket inside a Progress MS-17 capsule at around 7:27 p.m. EDT on Tuesday night from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The flight was successful, placing the capsule into orbit around nine minutes after launch, according to Russia's TASS news agency.

Aboard the specially designed MS-17 capsule is 420 liters of drinking water for astronauts aboard the ISS, 40 kg of air and oxygen, 470 kg of fuel, and more than 1,500 kg of other equipment including clothes and food.

The capsule now has to rendezvous with the ISS. It is expected to do so on Thursday night.

NASA posted footage of the launch to its Twitter account, which shows the workhorse Soyuz rocket streaking into the night sky.

The launch marks the second time this year that a Russian cargo ship has traveled to the ISS.

It is also the fourth uncrewed mission overall to the ISS this year, the 54th launch of a Soyuz 2.1a rocket, and 60th orbital launch attempt of 2021, according to Everyday Astronaut.

The ISS represents more than 20 years of international cooperation in space between the U.S., Russia, and many other countries. Its first piece was launched aboard a Russian rocket in November 1998.

The first crew members arrived two years later and the space station has been occupied by people ever since.

However, earlier this month the director of Russia's Roscosmos space agency warned the country may pull out of the ISS if the U.S. does not lift Trump-era sanctions imposed on it.

The sanctions affect two Russian space entities—the Progress Rocket Space Centre and the Central Research Institute of Machine Building, or TsNIIMash—because of alleged ties to the Russian military.

The sanctions mean companies in the U.S. have to get a license before they are allowed to sell to the two organizations.

During a Russian parliament hearing on June 7, Roscosmos director general Dmitry Rogozin said, according to NBC: "If the sanctions against Progress and TsNIIMash remain and are not lifted in the near future, the issue of Russia's withdrawal from the ISS will be the responsibility of the American partners."

Rogozin said Russia would deploy its own space station if it left the ISS.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson recently told CNN "it would not be good" if Russia pulled out of the ISS.