Three astronauts blast off for ISS mission
September 2, 2015
One Russian, one Dane, and one Kazakh left Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome on the Kazakh steppe and are scheduled to dock with the ISS on Friday.
"The crew is doing well, everything is in order on board," said Mission Control.
Andreas Mogensen is now the first Dane to reach outer space. He and his Kazakh colleague, Aidyn Aimbetov, who got his seat when famed British singer Sarah Brightman pulled out of her planned tourist trip to the station, are heading on a short 10-day mission to the facility 400 kilometers (around 250 miles) above the earth.
"It's a great honor for me to represent Denmark as an astronaut," Mogensen said last month.
Russian Sergei Volkov, a veteran cosmonaut, will be completing a 6-month mission, following in the footsteps of his father who first launched into space 24 years ago.
After the trip, the 500th manned launch in space travel history, the three will join three Russians, two Americans, and a Japanese astronaut already working on the ISS.
es/kms (AFP, AP, dpa)