The Soyuz-FG launch vehicle lifted off from the Baikonur Space Center in central Kazakhstan at 00:03 Moscow Standard Time on Thursday (21:03 GMT on Wednesday). Nine minutes after the launch, the spacecraft separated from the carrier rocket and began an autonomous flight that lasted six hours. Initially, the crew of Expedition 44/45 was to start off on the space mission on May 26 but Roscosmos had to revise the date in the wake of a defaulted launch of the Progress M-27M cargo craft, which overshot the designated orbit and was lost eventually. Soyuz rocket launch with new space station crew - in photo gallery by TASS.
Soyuz rocket launch with new space station crew
ISS Expedition 44/45 crew successfully launched after 2-month delay
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The Soyuz-FG launch vehicle lifted off from the Baikonur Space Center in central Kazakhstan at 00:03 Moscow Standard Time on Thursday (21:03 GMT on Wednesday). Nine minutes after the launch, the spacecraft separated from the carrier rocket and began an autonomous flight that lasted six hours
© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin Initially, the crew of Expedition 44/45 was to start off on the space mission on May 26 but Roscosmos had to revise the date in the wake of a defaulted launch of the Progress M-27M cargo craft, which overshot the designated orbit and was lost eventually. Photo: US astronaut Kjell Lindgen, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Japan astronaut Kimiya Yui
© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin For Kononenko, 51, this is a third orbital mission in his career of a space researcher. He has already spent 391 days in space and has done three spacewalks
© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko with his daughter Alice as his son Andrew
© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin Yui, 45, and Lindgren, 42, have begun their first space mission. Photo: US astronaut Kjell Lindgen, a crew member of the ISS Expedition 44/45
© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin Russian Space Agency experts testing a space suit of Japan astronaut Kimiya Yui
© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin In the course of the mission at the ISS, Oleg Kononenko will do an experiment on remote controlling of the robots based on the Earth from space. Photo: Oleg Kononenko and Kjell N. Lindgren
© Mikhail Japaridze/TASS The crew will be expected to receive and handle two Progress cargo craft, one Japanese and one American cargo carrier during the mission
© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin Officials, friends and families of US astronaut Kjell Lindgen, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Japan astronaut Kimiya Yui prior to the launch of Soyuz rocket
© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin Soyuz rocket launch to the International Space Station from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
© AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin