Two-men crew blasts off to ISS

Baikonur (Kazakhstan): A Russian and an American blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday, the first twoperson launch to the International Space Station in over a decade. The Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft carrying veteran Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and Nasa rookie Jack Fischer shot into the sky in bright conditions at 1243 IST. Manned launches to the ISS usually involve three crew members. But Russian space agency Roscosmos announced last year that only two cosmonauts would travel to the ISS this time as it cuts costs before the installation of a new module to expand the Russian section of the orbital lab at the end of 2017 or in early 2018.