Soyuz takes off from Kazakhstan, carrying 2 Russians and 1 American to space station

MOSCOW (AP) — A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American blasted off Wednesday for an express trip to the International Space Station.

The space capsule atop a towering rocket set off at 1623 GMT from Russia’s manned space launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and was scheduled to dock with the space station three hours later, in contrast to some missions that last for days.

The mission commander is Alexei Ovchinin, with Russian compatriot Ivan Vagner and American Donald Pettit in the crew.

The blast-off took place without obvious problems and the Soyuz entered orbit eight minutes after liftoff, 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, Vagner and Ovchinin 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.