A spacecraft carrying a US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts has taken off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan en route to the International Space Station.
The Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft was carrying NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Russians Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, whose journey to the ISS was expected to take three hours.
The blast-off took place without obvious problems and the Soyuz entered orbit eight minutes after lift-off, a relief for Russian space authorities after an automated safety system halted a launch in March because of a voltage drop in the power system.
Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, — NASA HQ PHOTO (@nasahqphoto) @NASA astronaut Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit), and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin wave as they board their Soyuz rocket for launch to @Space_Station 📷: https://t.co/pICmfPBxw1 pic.twitter.com/DcZLIai97KSeptember 11, 2024
On the space station, Pettit, Ovchinin and Vagner will join NASA's Tracy Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams and Russians Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin and Oleg Kononenko.
with AP