A spacecraft carrying a US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts has taken off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and docked with the International Space Station
The Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Russians Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner arrived a little more than three hours after its launch.
The capsule docked with the space station after two orbits of the earth, a fast trip compared with some that have lasted for days.
The crew already aboard the station were performing a lengthy series of system checks before those in the capsule can enter.
The launch 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.
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
Australian Associated Press
