Soyuz rocket blasts off for space station

A Soyuz spacecraft has lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, bound for the International Space Station.

On board are the American astronaut Michael Fossum, Japan's Satoshi Furukawa, and the Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov.

The men will spend almost two days in the Soyuz capsule before docking with the space station, where they will remain until mid-November.