A Russian spaceship carrying three astronauts blasted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan early Wednesday, local media reported.

         Russian television showed that a Soyuz-FG rocket carrying the Soyuz TMA-19 spaceship lifted off at 01:35 a.m. Moscow time (2135 GMT Tuesday) from the southern Kazakh steppe.

        The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) at 02:25 a.m. Moscow time (2225 GMT) on June. 18 after two days of flight.

          The 24th ISS mission, consisting of Russian cosmonaut Yury Yurchihin, NASA's Douglas Wheelock and Shannon Walker, will join another three astronauts already at the space station, thus restoring the ISS to its full capacity of six crew members.

     Among the three crewmembers, 45-year-old Shannon Walker is the only female and the only one that flies to ISS for the first time. They will spend 161 days in the space, during when space walks and scientific experiments will be conducted.

      The ISS has been raised by 2.5 km on June 8 ahead of the flight. It was the 100th launch under the ISS project since 1998, when the functional cargo block Zarya was put into orbit, the Russian space agency Roscosmos told Interfax news agency.
Editor: yan