BAIKONUR. March 22 (Interfax) - One Russian cosmonaut and two U.S. astronauts departed from Baikonur Cosmodrome for the International Space Station on Wednesday evening.
A Soyuz-FG launch vehicle carrying a Soyuz MS-08 spaceship blasted off from the Gagarin launch pad of Baikonur Cosmodrome at 8:44 p.m. Moscow time.
The estimated time of the spaceship's undocking from the carrier rocket third stage and injection into the target orbit is 8:53 p.m. Moscow time.
The Soyuz MS-08 is carrying members of the ISS-55/56 long-duration mission, namely, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and two NASA astronauts, Andrew Feustel and Richard Arnold. The crew that is preparing to welcome their colleagues on board the ISS includes Anton Shkaplerov (Roscosmos, Russia), Scott Tingle (NASA, U.S.) and Norishige Kanai (JAXA, Japan).