Russia launches manned spaceship to ISS

A Russian Soyuz spaceship carrying a crew of three blasted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan early Wednesday morning, Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos said.

Live TV footage showed the Soyuz-FG rocket, carrying the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft, was launched at 00:31 Moscow time Wednesday ( 2031 GMT Tuesday) from the cosmodrome.

Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano from the European Space Agency onboard the spaceship formed the 36/37 expedition of the International Space Station (ISS).

Astronauts will arrive at the station in a six-hour, four- rotation-around-the-Earth flight after the launch. It is the second Soyuz-TMA spaceship to reach the ISS in a fast mode instead of two days' journey, Roscosmos said.

The crew will conduct 34 experiments during their 172-day mission in the orbital station. They will prepare the station for docking with the Nauka laboratory module, which is scheduled to be launched in December.

Astronauts will expect the arrival of two Progress cargo ships as well as other spacecraft during their stay in the station, according to the Roscosmos.