Soyuz successfully launched into orbit

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan: Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said Monday the first manned Soyuz flight to the International Space Station since a failed launch in October was proceeding according to plan.

The Soyuz was “successfully launched into orbit,” Roscosmos wrote on Twitter.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Anne McClain of NASA and David Saint- Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency launched for a six-and-a-half month mission on the International Space Station at the expected time of 1131 GMT.

The launch was the first for the Soviet-era Soyuz since Oct 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 an 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. — AFP