A Russian-made Soyuz rocket blasted a three-man crew into orbit on Monday, beginning the first manned voyage to the International Space Station since a mission in October was aborted midair because of a rocket malfunction.

Welcome to Space! The trio is now safely in orbit and solar arrays have successfully deployed on their Soyuz spacecraft. They will now embark on six-hour chasedown of the @Space_Station and are expected to arrive later today: https://t.co/FRrjhIw77o pic.twitter.com/2wmO3vC7iT

— NASA (@NASA) December 3, 2018

The Soyuz MS-11 flight lifted off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Anne McClain and the Canadian Space Agency’s David Saint-Jacques.

The Soyuz is the only means of reaching the ISS since the United States retired the space shuttle in 2011.

Saint-Jacques will be the first Canadian astronaut to visit the space station since Chris Hadfield, who recorded a version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” on board in 2013.

Canada’s governor general and former astronaut Julie Payette will be among the dignitaries watching the launch.

Saint-Jacques joked that he had received so much training ahead of the flight “that I felt at the end that I could build a Soyuz in my backyard.” McClain served in Iraq and has represented the United States in women’s rugby.

She has said that training to spacewalk resembled the sport since it demands “grit, toughness, mental focus, and more”.

First Published: Dec 03, 2018 17:38 IST