Soyuz spacecraft blasts off to space station

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, December 21 (RIA Novosti) - The Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft which is to carry three astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) was launched in the early hours of Monday, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported.

The spacecraft was launched at 00:52 from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan, separated from the Soyuz-FG booster on schedule, at 1:01 Moscow time [22:01 Sunday GMT].

It is scheduled to dock with the ISS in the automated mode at 1:52 on Wednesday [22:52 Tuesday GMT].

The spacecraft carries Russia's Oleg Kotov, NASA's Timothy Creamer and Japan's Soichi Noguchi, who are to join the current ISS crew of U.S. astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian Maxim Surayev.