3 astronauts blast off to International Space Station

Three astronauts have blasted off to the International Space Station, a successful launch that follows October's aborted mission.

NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Kononenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos lifted off as scheduled at 5:31 p.m. (1131 GMT) Monday from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A Soyuz-FG rocket carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos' Alexei Ovchinin failed two minutes into its flight on Oct. 11, activating an automatic rescue system that sent their capsule into a steep ride back to Earth.

A Russian investigation attributed the failure to a sensor that was damaged during the rocket's final assembly.

 

Since the mishap, four successful Soyuz launches have been conducted to clear the path for the crew's launch.