ALMATY (Reuters) - A Soyuz spaceship carrying Russian, Japanese and U.S. astronauts blasted off for the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday.
Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, veteran Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Sunita Williams launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-05M rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 03:40 a.m. British time.
The trio are scheduled to berth early on Tuesday, joining NASA Flight Engineer Joseph Acaba and two Russian cosmonauts, Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, aboard the ISS, a $100 billion (64 billion pounds) research complex orbiting about 240 miles (385 km) above Earth.
(Reporting by Robin Paxton and Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Eric Walsh)
