Soyuz rocket launches crew to International Space Station

Three new crew members for the International Space Station (ISS) have launched from Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz rocket carrying Fyodor Yurchikhin, Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano lifted away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 02:31 local time on Wednesday (20:31 GMT Tuesday).

Russian Yurchikhin and American Nyberg have both been into space before. Italian Parmitano is a first-timer.

Their journey to the orbiting platform should take just under six hours.