Spacecraft blasts off for International Space Station

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying British-born astronaut Michael Foale and two others blasted off today for the International Space Station from the Russian space programme’s cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The launch came three days after China became the world’s third space faring nation, joining the ranks of the then Soviet Union and the US. It was the second manned space launch from Baikonur since the US space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in February, putting the US space programme on hold.