A Russian rocket blasted off from a launch facility in Kazakhstan
on Wednesday, carrying a Russian, an American and a Malaysian
headed to the international space station.
The Soyuz-FG rocket lifted off on schedule, soaring into a
darkening sky above the Kazakh steppe. It was topped by a
spacecraft that is to deliver U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, veteran
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, a
Malaysian physician, to the orbital station in about two
days.
Whitson, of Beaconsfield, Iowa, is to be the first woman to command
the international space station. Sheikh Muszaphar, a 35-year-old
orthopedic surgeon, is to spend about 10 days on the station as the
first Malaysian in space, performing experiments involving diseases
and the effects of microgravity and space radiation on cells and
genes.
His parents watched the liftoff from an observation area, praying
and in tears.
Whitson and Malenchenko are to replace two of the station's current
crew, cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, who are due to
return to Earth along with Sheikh Muszaphar.
