Rocket with three-man crew blasts off to space station

[Buster's Uncle]

Rocket with three-man crew blasts off to space station
Reuters  2 hours ago



The Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft carrying the crew of Timothy Peake of Britain, Yuri Malenchenko of Russia and Timothy Kopra of the U.S. blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, December 15, 2015. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov



BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a three-man international crew, including Britain's first official astronaut, Tim Peake, blasted off on Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The rocket carrying the Soyuz TMA-19M spaceship lifted off at 1703 p.m. local time (1103 GMT), beginning its six-hour journey to the International Space Station, and successfully reached its designated orbit about nine minutes later.

As well as Peake, the crew includes commander Yuri Malenchenko, a former Russian Air Force pilot and a veteran of long-duration space flights, and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra.

Peake, 43, a former army major who is on a six-month mission for the European Space Agency (ESA), became the first Briton to go into space since Helen Sharman traveled on a Soviet spacecraft for eight days in 1991.

He is also the first astronaut officially representing the British government and wearing a Union Jack flag on his arm.

The same trio of Malenchenko, Kopra and Peake are set to return to Earth on June 5 next year.

(Reporting by Shamil Zhumatov, Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Dmitry Solovyov and Angus MacSwan)


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