Russian rocket gives NASA lift to space

NASA ended its space shuttle programme in July. The launch Monday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome,carrying an American,Daniel C Burbank,and two Russians,Anton N. Shkaplerov and Anatoly A. Ivanishin,is the first trip into orbit by astronauts since the last shuttle flight.

The Soyuz TMA-22 is scheduled to dock with the space station on Wednesday,and the three astronauts will join three others who have been on board since June. Those three astronauts are scheduled to return to Earth next week and recent mishaps had raised concerns that the space station would be left empty for the first time in more than a decade.

Monday’s launch,originally scheduled for September,was delayed after the failure in August of a Russian unmanned cargo rocket similar to the one used for manned flights. In a separate mishap last week,a Russian craft headed to explore a Martian moon got stalled in low-Earth orbit after its engines failed to fire. The stalled probe,which also launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome,could crash back to Earth within weeks.

In addition to carrying out dozens of experiments,the newly arrived space station team will inaugurate the new era of commercial space expeditions,including the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket,built by Space Exploration Technologies Corp of California.