American, Russian arrive at International Space Station

A Soyuz space capsule delivered an American astronaut making his first space flight and a veteran Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station on Thursday.

NASA’s Jack Fischer and Russia’s Fyodor Yurchikhin lifted off from the Russialeased launch facility in Kazakhstan at 1:13 pm Thursday (0713GMT, 3:13 am EDT). They reached orbit about nine minutes later, a moment illustrated when a small white stuffed dog hanging from a string in the capsule began to float.

About six hours later, they docked at the orbiting outpost.

Fischer and Yurchikhin join a crew commanded by NASA’s Peggy Whitson. The others at the station are Russia’s Oleg Novitskiy and France’s Thomas Pesquet.

The two American astronauts are scheduled to speak with President Donald Trump on Monday. On that day, Wilson, who on a previous mission became the first woman to command the International Space Station, will break the US astronaut record for the most cumulative time in space. Jeffrey Williams currently holds the 534-day record.

At 57, Whitson also is the oldest woman to have been in space. She is scheduled to return to Earth in September.

Fischer and Yurchikhin, making his fifth space flight, will spend more than four months aboard the orbiting station before also returning to Earth in September.

Also: WENCHANG, China:

A Chinese rocket successfully sent the country’s first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1, into space from the southern island province of Hainan Thursday.

This NASA image obtained April 19, shows a movie of asteroid 2014 JO25 generated using radar data collected by NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar in California’s Mojave Desert. An asteroid stretching 650 metres (2,000 feet) across is on track to whoosh past Earth on April 19, at a safe — but uncomfortably close — distance, according to astronomers. ‘Although there is no possibility for the asteroid to collide with our planet, this will be a very close approach for an asteroid this size,’ NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. Dubbed 2014-JO25, the asteroid will come within 1.8 million kms (1.1 million miles) of Earth, less than five times the distance to the Moon. (AFP) Las Vegas Astronomical Society vice president of special events Keith Caceres sets up a telescope outside the Planetarium at the College of Southern Nevada to view asteroid 2014 JO25 on April 19, 2017 in Las Vegas,

Nevada. (AFP)

Fuelled by liquid oxygen and kerosene, the Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket blasted off from Hainan’s Wenchang Space Launch Center at 7:41 pm (11:41 GMT).

Hundreds of spectators who had been waiting to observe the launch since the afternoon cheered and clapped in the stands.

Journalists and local hobbyists with longrange zoom lenses snapped photos of the rocket as it made its swift ascent.

Tianzhou-1, the first cargo spacecraft developed by China, is headed to dock with the orbiting Tiangong-2 space lab, which was launched last September.

The cargo ship is a “crucial step” toward China’s goal of completing its own crewed space station by 2022, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The tube-like craft measures 10.6 metres in length and can carry over six tonnes of cargo as well as satellites, Xinhua said.

It will also conduct experiments in space, including one on non-Newtonian gravitation, before falling back to Earth, Xinhua said. (Agencies)