Russia successfully launches first manned voyage to International Space Station since October rocket accident

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.

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.

NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Kononenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos lifted off on Monday from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (Photo: Twitter/Nasa)

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”.