Two rookie astronauts, cosmonaut blast off to ISS

Baikonur : A three-man space crew featuring American and Japanese rookie astronauts as well as an experienced Russian cosmonaut blasted off on Sunday for a six-month mission at the International Space Station.

Scott Tingle of NASA, Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency powered into the sky in a Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:21 pm (0721 GMT), according to footage aired by the Russian space agency.

While most flights to the ISS now take around six hours, the trio are taking the more circuitous two-day route due to the lab’s position at the time of launch.