New crew blasts off for ISS

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan: A relatively inexperienced crew of two astronauts and a cosmonaut blasted off yesterday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a five-month mission on the International Space Station.

German Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, Nasa’s Serena Aunon- Chancellor and Russian Sergei Prokopyev of Roscosmos shot into the sky in warm, dry conditions at 1112 GMT.

They should dock at the space station on Friday.

The trio only have a total of one mission between them – 42-yearold Gerst’s debut mission aboard the ISS was in 2014 – making this one of the less experienced crews to launch towards the space station in recent times.

Prokopyev, 43, will serve as the crew’s flight commander for the two- day journey to the orbital lab despite having never flown into space before.

Aunon- Chancellor, 42, who followed her father into engineering before training to be an astronaut and is also a practising doctor, was only confirmed by Nasa for the mission at the beginning of the year.

The rookie’s late inclusion into the mission came at the expense of Jeanette Epps, who would have been the first African-American to serve on a long-term mission aboard the space station had she flown as expected.

Nasa did not explain the change.

Gerst, who will be commanding the space station for the first time during his mission, referenced the steppe scenery in central Kazakhstan on Twitter yesteraday as he warmed up for the flight.

“L- 6 hours. On our way to the suit- up building. Got a great farewell from our friends and families. Crew is doing great. Looking at unimpressed camels on the side of the road. #horizons,” he tweeted.

The space laboratory has been orbiting Earth at about 28,000 kilometres per hour since 1998.