Multinational crew arrives at International Space Station

2014-05-29 1,371

ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)

Leaving politics behind, a veteran Russian cosmonaut and a pair of rookie astronauts from the United States and Germany blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday (May 28) for a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

The crew's Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off at 3:57 p.m. EDT (1957 GMT) and headed into orbit, a live broadcast on NASA Television showed.

Less than six hours after lift off, the crew reached the station, a $100 billion research laboratory as it flew about 418 kilometres (260 miles) above the Pacific Ocean west of Peru.

The Soyuz slipped into a berthing port on the station's Rassvet module at 9:44 p.m. EDT/0144 GMT.

The station, a project of 15 nations, is overseen by the United States and Russia.

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