American and Russians dock at International Space Station

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket booster with Soyuz MS-18 space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station flies at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan (Roscosmos Space Agency via AP)

A trio of Russian and American space travellers have launched successfully and reached the International Space Station.

Nasa astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov blasted off as scheduled at 12.42pm (0742 GMT) aboard the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan.