US-Russian crew blasts off for International Space Station

MOSCOW – 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 Wednesday from the Russia-leased Baikonur launchpad in Kazakhstan. It’s 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 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.