New crew blasts off for ISS

A relatively inexperienced crew of two astronauts and a cosmonaut blasted off 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. —

AFP Russia’s Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft blasts off to the ISS from the launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome on Wednesday —