Crew members arrive at space station in record three hours after launch

A Soyuz-2.1a rocket booster with Soyuz MS-17 space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station (ISS), blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome (Roscosmos/AP)

A trio of space travellers blasted off to the International Space Station, using for the first time a fast-track manoeuvre that allowed them to reach the orbiting outpost in just a little over three hours.

Nasa astronaut Kate Rubins along with cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos lifted off as scheduled on Wednesday morning from the Russia-leased Baikonur space launch facility in Kazakhstan for a six-month stint on the station.