Article Posted on : - May 15, 2012

The Soyuz FG rocket lifts off from the Baikonur cosmodrome on Tuesday. A Roscosmos photo

BAIKONUR (BNS): A Soyuz space capsule with two Russian cosmonauts and a US astronaut has been launched to the International Space Station (ISS).

The Russian Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft was launched by a Soyuz-FG carrier rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7.01 am Moscow time on Tuesday, Russian federal space agency Roscosmos said.

The trio on board the Soyuz - Russia's Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, and NASA's Joseph Acaba - is scheduled to dock their spacecraft to the Poisk module of the ISS at 8.38 Moscow time on Thursday.

The new crew members will join Russia's Oleg Kononenko, NASA's Don Pettit and European Space Agency's André Kuipers, who have been aboard the orbiting laboratory since December 23, 2011.

The six astronauts and cosmonauts will work together for about two months in the space station, NASA said.

After the retirement of US space shuttles in July last year, Russian Soyuz vehicles remain the sole means to ferry astronauts and cargo to the orbital station.