BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan: Three astronauts aboard a Soyuz spacecraft successfully launched towards the International Space Station on Thursday after a two-month delay caused by a Russian rocket failure.
The spacecraft blasted off on schedule from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in the barren Kazakh steppe at 2102 GMT, carrying cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, US astronaut Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui of Japan.
As the Soyuz TMA 17M rocket surged skywards from the launch pad, the fire from the boosters set the inky night sky aglow.
Russian officials breathed a sigh of relief, with the space agency Roscosmos saying that the third stage of the Soyuz …read more
Source: theSun
