Manned Soyuz MS 11 successfully blasts off towards ISS

Russia's state space agency, Roscosmos, successfully launched the manned Soyuz MS 11 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Canadian space agency's astronaut David Saint-Jacques and NASA's Anne McClain towards the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday.

Roscosmos announced that the spacecraft had completed the third stage and would be reaching the ISS by Monday night (IST).

The spacecraft is successfully in orbit and is the first manned mission to be launched since October when the rocket malfunctioned two minutes after liftoff. Russian astronaut Alexei Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague were on board, according to Sputnik.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine thanked both the teams at Roscosmos and NASA for their hard work that made the launch a success.

The current mission is about 194-days long and the rocket will take about six hours to reach the space station.