A Russian Soyuz spacecraft blasted off on Friday on a mission to bring back to Earth a crew stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) by a leak in the cooling system of their original return capsule, Russian news agencies reported.
Tass news agency said the unmanned Soyuz MS-23 lifted off from Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan and had been placed in orbit. It was due to dock with the ISS on Saturday at 0101 GMT.
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and U.S. astronaut Francisco Rubio had been due to end their mission in March. They were left stuck in space after the cooling system of their Soyuz MS-22 capsule started leaking two months ago. Russian space agency Roscosmos said this week the trio would now return to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-23 in September. The damaged MS-22 spacecraft is now scheduled to land without a crew in March.
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