Moscow, 8 April

A Russian Soyuz-2.1a rocket took off for the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 8 April. It is named the 'Victory Rocket' to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. The rocket carried a Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft with three crew members. Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky and NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim were onboard.

The launch was broadcast on Russian state television. The spacecraft will be delivered to orbit in about nine minutes and is expected to dock with the Prichal module of the Russian segment of the ISS. The three-member crew is expected to stay on the ISS for a period of 245 days or eight months. NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim, 41, is a US Navy SEAL and a medical doctor, while Ryzhikov, 50, is a pilot in the Russian Air Force and Zubritsky, 32, is on his first space mission.

This is also Kim's first and Ryzhikov's third flight, according to NASA. NASA said Kim will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare crews for future space missions and provide benefits to people on Earth. Kim, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky will join NASA astronauts Don Pettit, Anne McClain and Nicole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Kirill Peskov on the space outpost.

Russia's Roscosmos State Space Corporation earlier said that at least 2,500 tourists had arrived at Baikonur to watch the launch. The rocket crew's insignia includes special insignia commemorating 60 years since the world's first spacewalk in March 1965 and 50 years since the first joint mission between the US and Russia, the Apollo-Soyuz test project, in July 1975.