Russia launches rocket with three astronauts

Moscow, Nov 14: Russia on Monday (Today) launched a rocket to the International Space Station along with three astronauts, with a mission to keep the station manned and to maintain the country's reputation as a space power.

A Soyuz-FG rocket launched from Kazakhstan"s Baikonur space centre included three astronauts American Dan Burbank, Anatoly Ivanishin and Russians Anton Shkaplerov.

However, the three astronauts planned to join ISS" current crew of Japan"s Satoshi Furukawa, American Mike Fossum and Russia"s Sergei Volkov.

Meanwhile, Russia's space programme is struggling to recover from mishaps as there was a failure of Mars probe on Wednesday.

On Aug 14, Soyuz rocket crashed, carrying an unmanned freighter with supplies for the ISS forced a delay on the manned flights, so the Russian technicians could perform reliability checks on Soyuz rocket.

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