Astronauts on aborted Soyuz launch blast off successfully for ISS
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and his Russian colleague Alexey Ovchinin, who survived a dramatically aborted Soyuz launch last year, blasted off successfully for the International Space Station.
The two men, joined by US astronaut Christina Koch, lifted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at the expected time 1914 GMT on Thursday.
"The Soyuz is now in orbit and the crew are on their way to the International Space Station," said a commentator on NASA television.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos confirmed it had entered orbit.
The lift off was closely watched after the two men's space journey was cut short in October when a technical problem with their Soyuz rocket triggered a launch abort two minutes into the flight. Both men escaped unharmed.
It was the first such accident in Russia's post-Soviet history and a major setback for its once proud space industry.
Speaking to reporters ahead of their six-month mission, flight commander Ovchinin said that some faulty components