Two Russian and one American space pilot were sent together to the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday.
The Soyuz spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan in the evening Finnish time, with Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovtshinin and Ivan Wagner and a US astronaut Donald Pettit.
According to Roskosmos, the Russian space agency, the launch was successful and the spacecraft entered orbit.
Since Russia started its war of aggression in Ukraine, cooperation related to the space station has been almost the only area in which the United States and Russia have continued to cooperate. Manned flights will continue as agreed until at least 2025.