MOSCOW (Reuters) - A cargo ship docked successfully with Russia's aging Mir space station early on Friday and a leading space official was quoted as saying that the space lab could stay in use all year.

Mission Control said the docking of the Progress M1-2 craft, launched from Baikonur cosmodrome on Wednesday with oxygen, fuel and other supplies, was carried out in automatic mode by commands from the ground.

Cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri, who returned to Mir this month after it was left empty for 223 days, then checked to make sure the docking module was tightly sealed before entering the cargo craft to begin to unload it.

Mir, 14 years old, was due to be scrapped this year but got a new lease of life after foreign investors came up with $30 million in funding. They hope the lab, the pride of the Soviet and Russian space program, can be turned into a space hotel.

Yury Semyonov, president and chief designer of the company which made Mir, RKK Energiya, told Russian NTV television that the mission, originally planned for 45 days, would be extended by 10 days to prepare the station for another crew.

He was also quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that the space station would probably be manned until the end of the year, rather than only to August as originally planned.