A Russian Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft with three astronauts aboard was launched Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome bound for the International Space Station. </s> Two NASA astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket bound for the International Space Station on Wednesday.

Soyuz commander Oleg Artemyev, flight engineer Andrew “Drew” Feustel and Richard “Ricky” Arnold launched aboard the Soyuz MS-08/54S spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:44 p.m. EDT (GMT-4; 11:44 p.m. local time).

The capsule carrying the trio should dock with the ISS at approximately 3:41 p.m. Friday. They’ll join Expedition 55 commander Anton Shkaplerov, NASA astronaut Scott Tingle and Japanese crewmate Norishige Kanai. Three other crew members — Alexander Misurkin, Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba — returned to Earth on Feb. 27.

Shkaplerov, Tingle and Kanai are scheduled to return to Earth on June 3. </s> BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) — Three astronauts who were launched into space aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft Monday entered the International Space Station nearly eight hours later, a relief to relatives and scientists months after a rocket failure aborted another mission.

The hatch of the capsule carrying NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Kononenko of Russian space agency Roscosmos was opened while the station was flying over the southern coast of Yemen.

The three were greeted upon arrival Monday by the station's current crew members, who had waited outside the hatch after the astronauts' capsule docked and underwent safety checks.

Their Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft launched from the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday at 5:31 p.m. (1131 GMT; 6:31 a.m. EST) then entered a designated orbit just under nine minutes later. The spacecraft made four orbits over six hours as it chased down the space station for the docking.

The astronauts were the first sent to be sent to the space station since a crewed Soyuz launch was aborted in October after a booster rocket failed to separate properly, crippling the rocket. The families of the crew, other astronauts and space officials from several nations breathed a sigh of relief after observing the flawless launch.

NASA and Roscosmos said all onboard systems operated normally and the astronauts felt fine during the six-hour trip the space station. After two hours waiting in their capsule to confirm their ship was firmly docked to the station, they exited the capsule to join three astronauts already aboard the orbiting outpost at 1:37 a.m. (1940 GMT; 2:40 p.m. EST.)

The station's current crew of NASA's Serena Aunon-Chancellor, Russian Sergei Prokopyev and German Alexander Gerst were waiting to greet the newcomers. They are scheduled to return to Earth on Dec. 20.

McClain, Saint-Jacques and Kononenko will spend more than six months at the space station doing research and experiments in biology, Earth science, physical sciences and technology.

A Soyuz-FG rocket carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos' Alexei Ovchinin failed two minutes into its flight on Oct. 11, activating an automatic rescue system that sent their capsule into a steep ride back to Earth. They managed to emerge safely despite the harrowing ordeal.

A Russian investigation attributed the failure to a sensor that was damaged during the rocket's final assembly.

NASA announced Monday that Hague and Ovchinin will now launch to the space station on Feb. 28, along with NASA astronaut Christina Hammock Koch.

The Soyuz accident in October was the first aborted crew launch for the Russian space program since 1983, when two Soviet cosmonauts safely jettisoned after a launch pad explosion.

Russian space officials took measures to prevent the repeat of such a rocket failure. Since the October mishap, four successful unmanned Soyuz satellite launches have been conducted to clear the path for the crew's launch on Monday.

After Monday's successful launch, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted his thanks to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Rogozin and to NASA and Roscosmos space teams "for their dedication to making this launch a success."

The Soyuz spacecraft is currently the only vehicle that can ferry crews to the space station, but Russia stands to lose that monopoly in the coming years with the arrival of SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's Starliner crew capsules.

Vladimir Isachenkov and Matthew Bodner in Moscow contributed to this report. </s> BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - A Russian cosmonaut and a U.S. astronaut were safe on Thursday after a Soyuz rocket bound for the International Space Station failed in mid-air two minutes after liftoff in Kazakhstan, leading to a dramatic emergency landing.

The two-man crew, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and American Nick Hague, landed unharmed on the Kazakh desert steppe as rescue crews raced to reach them, according to the U.S. space agency NASA and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos.

The mishap occurred as the first and second stages of a Russian booster rocket separated shortly after the launch from Kazakhstan’s Soviet-era cosmodrome of Baikonur.

The Soyuz capsule carrying Ovchinin and Hague separated from the malfunctioning Russian rocket and plunged 31 miles (50 km) down to the surface, with parachutes helping to slow its speed, NASA said. A cloud of sand billowed up as the capsule landed after what NASA called a 34-minute steep ballistic descent.

Video from inside the capsule showed the two men being shaken around at the moment the failure occurred, with their arms and legs flailing. Ovchinin can be heard saying, “That was a quick flight.”

Photographs released by Roscosmos after the rescue showed the two men smiling and relaxing on sofas at a town near their landing site as they underwent medical tests. A photograph posted on Twitter by NASA showed Ovchinin and Hague embracing their families after being transported back to the Baikonur site.

Rescue crews raced to the scene to retrieve them from their landing spot, including paratroopers, helicopters and all-terrain vehicles, NASA said.

NASA has relied on Russian rockets to ferry astronauts to the space station since the United States retired its Space Shuttle program in 2011, although the agency has announced plans for a test flight carrying two astronauts on a SpaceX commercial rocket next April.

Space is an area of cooperation between the United States and Russia at a time of fraught relations. Asked about the mishap, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House he was “not worried” that American astronauts have to rely on Russia to get into space.

Thursday’s mishap was the first serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983, when a crew narrowly escaped before a launchpad explosion.

‘CREW HAS BEEN SAVED’

Moscow immediately suspended all manned space launches, the RIA news agency reported, while Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said he ordered a state commission to be created to investigate what went wrong. Russia’s Investigative Committee said it opened a criminal investigation into the matter.

“Rescue services have been working since the first second of the accident,” Rogozin wrote on Twitter. “The emergency rescue systems of the MS-Soyuz spacecraft worked smoothly. The crew has been saved.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the most important thing was that the two men were alive.

A view shows the Soyuz capsule transporting U.S. astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, after it made an emergency landing following a failure of its booster rockets, near the city of Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan October 11, 2018. Federal Air Transport Agency "Rosaviation"/Handout via REUTERS.

The space station’s next re-supply mission had been scheduled for late October from Baikonur, but the new investigation may delay it.

NASA officials now must decide how or whether to maintain a U.S. presence on the $100 billion orbital research laboratory.

“The fact that this crew didn’t get to orbit, we feel bad for them. But we have confidence that our Russian colleagues will figure out what’s going on and we’ll hopefully see Nick and Alexei in orbit at the space station soon,” said Kenny Todd, NASA’s International Space Station operations integration manager.

Hague and Ovchinin were set to join the station’s current three-member crew, which includes American Serena Aunon-Chancellor.

“We have a lot of things planned through the rest of the fall and the winter, and that’s all just being reassessed right now,” Sam Scimemi, NASA’s director for the International Space Station, told Reuters. “We have resources well into next year for this crew, so there’s no concern about resources on board.”

Interfax quoted a source as saying the crash meant the three people aboard the space station - a German and a Russian in addition to the American - would be stuck there at least until January. They were due to return to Earth in December.

Unmanned launches of Soyuz rockets might also be suspended, Interfax said.

Visiting Kazakhstan for the first time as NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine witnessed Thursday’s launch and promised a “thorough investigation” into the mishap.

Slideshow (17 Images)

“I’m grateful that everyone is safe,” Bridenstine said in a statement.

Questions are now likely to be asked about Russia’s space program. In August, a hole appeared in a Soyuz capsule docked to the ISS that caused a brief loss of air pressure and had to be patched. Rogozin has said it could have been made deliberately by someone during manufacturing or while the craft was in space.

Last November, Roscosmos lost contact with a newly launched weather satellite after it blasted off from Russia’s new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East. </s> BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) — The Latest on the launch of crews to the International Space Station (all times local):

Three astronauts who launched into space aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft have entered the International Space Station after spending nearly eight hours in their tiny capsule.

NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Kononenko of Russian space agency Roscosmos were greeted upon arrival Monday by the station's current crew members, who had waited outside the capsule's hatch.

The hatch was opened at 1:37 a.m. (1940 GMT; 2:40 p.m. EST) while the station was flying over the southern coast of Yemen.

The three launched into space from the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday at 5:31 p.m. (1131 GMT; 6:31 a.m. EST.) They docked with the station at 11:33 p.m. (17:33 GMT; 12:33 p.m. EST.)

The astronauts were the first sent to be sent to the space station since a crewed Soyuz launch was aborted in October after a booster rocket failed to separate properly, crippling the rocket.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three astronauts has successfully docked with the International Space Station following a launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan six hours earlier.

NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Kononenko of Russian space agency Roscosmos docked with the station at 11:33 p.m. (1723 GMT; 12:33 p.m. EST) Monday.

The crew must wait up to two hours while the latches and seals of the docking port are checked and ground controllers confirm it is safe to open the spacecraft's hatch and join the astronauts already aboard the station.

Stakes were high for Monday's launch, the first to carry a crew since a previous mission to the space station in October was aborted two minutes into the flight after a booster failed to properly separate from the rocket.

Three astronauts have successfully blasted off to the International Space Station from Kazakhstan, a perfect launch that follows October's aborted mission.

NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Kononenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos lifted off as scheduled at 5:31 p.m. (1131 GMT; 6:31 a.m. EST) Monday from the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Their Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft entered a designated orbit just under nine minutes after the launch and is set to dock at the space outpost in about six hours. NASA and Roscosmos said that all onboard systems were operating normally and the crew was feeling fine.

Space officials breathed a sigh of relief after observing the flawless launch, with October's rocket failure still on the minds of many. </s> A rocket carrying two American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station has blasted off successfully.

The Soyuz booster blasted off as scheduled on Wednesday from the Russia-leased Baikonur launchpad in Kazakhstan.

It is carrying Nasa astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold, and Roscosmos' cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev.

The rocket put their Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft in a designated orbit en route to the station.

The crew are now ‘embarking on a two day journey to their new home in space.’

The spacecraft is set to dock at the orbiting outpost on Friday.

The trio will join Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos, Scott Tingle of Nasa and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency who are on the station.

The mission comes at a time of strained relations between Russia and the West, with the country blamed for the poisoning of a former Kremlin spy in Salisbury and meddling in the US election.

In a neutrally worded tweet prior to the launch, the American space agency said: 'Three people will leave planet Earth (on Wednesday) for a journey to humanity's orbiting laboratory – the @Space_Station.'

The trio, who were pictured putting their hands together as they prepared for their flight, are scheduled to arrive at the ISS on Friday.

While circling the Earth 240 miles up, the members of Expedition 55-56 will continue work on the hundreds of experiments aboard the ISS.

The United States recently imposed fresh sanctions on Russia after a probe into meddling in the 2016 election of Donald Trump.

Meanwhile the UK and Russia have been involved in a tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats as part of a row over who was responsible for the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal. </s> In the sparsely populated Kazakh Steppe in Kazakhstan, Russia’s state-run space corporation, Roscosmos, launched three people to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-08 lifted off pad 1/5 at 1:44 p.m. EDT (17:44 GMT) March 21, 2018, from Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The following photos taken by NASA’s Joel Kowsky show the 162-foot (49.5-meter) long Soyuz-FG carrier rocket roll out to the launch pad two days before liftoff, the three fresh Expedition 55 crew members traveling to their Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft the day of the flight, and the launch itself.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel are on a two-day trek to rendezvous and dock with the ISS. The spacecraft will link up with the Poisk module at 3:41 p.m. EDT (19:41 GMT) March 23 to begin a five-month stay at the outpost.

From left to right: NASA astronaut Drew Feustel, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold </s> A Soyuz rocket booster failed during the launch of a capsule carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin Thursday, forcing officials to abort their mission. The capsule made a "ballistic landing" and rescue teams recovered the pair, who are reportedly in "good condition," NASA says.

Hague and Ovchinin launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:40 a.m. ET, heading to join the crew of the International Space Station. But more than a minute after launch, their Soyuz MS-10's booster failed.

Search and recovery teams had been predeployed to areas beneath the possible flight path. Helicopters were able to reach Haig and Ovchinin fairly quickly and extract them from the capsule. They then started the process of flying back to Baikonur.

A NASA TV commentator at Mission Control in Houston describes a ballistic descent or landing this way: "That means it comes in at a sharper angle to land than we normally land at. And that means that the crew inside experiences higher G-force loads as they go through the landing."

"That is a landing mode we've seen before," the commentator said.

A recording of communications between the space station and NASA stated that Hague and Ovchinin had experienced 6.7 G's — about the same as Apollo astronauts felt during reentry, according to Air and Space magazine.

A photo posted by Russia's Roscosmos space agency shortly before launch showed Ovchinin and Hague awaiting launch in their capsule — ready to complete two weeks of intense preparations and final tests at the Baikonur launch site.

"I'm grateful that everyone is safe. A thorough investigation into the cause of the incident will be conducted," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who was in Kazakhstan for the rocket launch.

Roscosmos says it is forming a state commission to investigate the aborted launch.

NASA says it chose Hague as an astronaut in 2013 and completed training in 2015; he had been scheduled to perform at least two spacewalks as part of his mission on the space station. He is a colonel in the Air Force.

Ovchinin was heading to space for the second time, having previously served aboard the station.

The two had been slated to join three crewmates on the ISS as part of Expedition 57. The trip to the station was to take them about six hours.

The launch took place one week after three members of the ISS crew returned to Earth. Since then, the station has been operated by just three people: Commander Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, and Flight Engineers Serena Auñón-Chancellor of NASA and Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos. </s> Russian spacecraft Soyuz MS-09 with three crew members onboard landed successfully in Kazakhstan Thursday, the European Space Agency said.

Russian astronaut Sergey Prokopyev, United States' Serena Aunon-Chancellor of the NASA, and German Alexander Gerst of the ESA, returned from the International Space Station in the spacecraft after staying in space for 197 days.
Three people (two American, one Russian) launch successfully from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz MS-08 to the International Space Station as part of Expedition 55.