Soyuz heads to ISS on first manned mission since October failure
BAIKONUR: A Soyuz rocket carrying Russian, American and Canadian astronauts took off from Kazakhstan and reached orbit on Monday, the first manned mission since a failed launch in October.
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Anne Mcclain of Nasa and David Saint-jacques of the Canadian Space Agency blasted off for a six-and-a-half month mission on the International Space Station on schedule at 1131 GMT.
A few minutes after their rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russian space agency Roscomos announced that the capsule was “successfully launched into orbit”.
Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine confirmed on Twitter that the crew were “safely in orbit” and thanked the US and Russian teams “for their dedication to making this launch a success”.
The journey to the orbital lab takes six hours, with docking expected at 1736 GMT.
It was the first manned launch for the Soviet-era Soyuz since October 11, when a rocket carrying Russia’s Aleksey Ovchinin and US astronaut Nick Hague failed just minutes after blast-off, forcing the pair to make a harrowing emergency landing.
They escaped unharmed, but the failed launch — the first such incident in Russia’s post-soviet history — raised concerns about the state of the Soyuz programme.
The Soyuz is the only means of reaching the ISS since the United States retired the space shuttle in 2011.
Kononenko, Mcclain and Saintjacques smiled and gave thumbs up to the cheering crowd including relatives as they ascended into the Soyuz capsule.
At a press conference on the eve of the launch, crew commander Kononenko said the astronauts “absolutely” trusted teams preparing for the flight.
“Risk is part of our profession,” the 54-year-old said. “We are psychologically and technically prepared for blast-off and any situation which, God forbid, may occur on board.” Mcclain, a 39-yearold former military pilot, said the crew looked forward to going up. “We feel very ready for it,” she said.